MOTHER  NATURE : PROGRESS 


MOTHER   NATURE 
PROGRESS 

TWO  BELGIAN  PLAYS 


BY 


GUSTAVE  VANZYPE 


TRANSLATED  WITH  AN 
INTRODUCTION  BY 
BARRETT  H.  CLARK 


BOSTON 

LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND   COMPANY 
1917 


Copyright,  1917, 
BY  LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND  COMPANY. 


All  rights  reserved 
Published  October,  1917 


TYPOGRAPHY  BY  THE  PLIMPTON  PRESS,  NORWOOD,  MASS.,  U.S.A. 
PRINTED    BY    S.    j.   PAKKHLLL    &    CO.,     BOSTON,  MASS.,    U.S.A. 


PREFACE 

GUSTAVE  VANZYPE  AND  THE  MODERN 
BELGIAN  DRAMA 

IT  is  only  natural  that  the  dramatic  products  of  a 
nation  should  be  known  abroad  by  its  most  strik- 
ing examples.  It  was  fitting  that  the  modern  French 
drama  should  first  be  introduced  to  English  readers 
through  translations  of  Cyrano  de  Bergerac.  In  the 
realm  of  modern  Belgian  drama,  Maeterlinck  has  stood 
until  recent  times  as  the  sole  representative.  But  no 
one  would  maintain  that  Rostand  and  Maeterlinck  are 
typical  dramatists  of  then-  respective  nations;  they 
are  rather  outstanding  exceptions.  Cyrano  and 
L'Aiglon  and  Chantecler  are  products  of  the  Romantic 
school;  Pelleas  et  Melisande,  L'Intruse,  and  L'Oiseau 
bleu,  are  dramatic  and  poetic  embodiments  of  Maeter- 
linck's mystical  philosophy.  Interesting  and  beautiful 
as  such  plays  are,  they  afford  us  no  adequate  idea  of 
the  day-to-day  theater  of  the  countries  from  which 
they  come.  If  we  wish  to  know  the  true  French  theater, 
we  must  turn  to  the  plays  of  Lavedan,  Capus,  Lemaitre, 
Donnay;  if  we  would  know  of  the  contemporary  drama 
in  Belgium,  we  must  turn  to  Paul  Spaak,  Fernand  Crom- 
melynck,  and  above  all,  to  Gustave  Vanzype. 

The  plays  of  Maeterlinck  are  already  well  known, 
and  the  dramatic  poems  of  Verhaeren  have  begun  to 


2082461 


vi  PREFACE 


be  talked  about  if  not  appreciated,  but  the  relation  of 
these  works  to  the  Belgian  stage,  as  distinct  from 
Belgian  literature  and  Belgian  thought,  has  scarcely 
been  touched  upon.  The  reason,  as  I  have  already 
intimated,  is  not  difficult  to  find:  we  have,  naturally 
enough,  sought  only  the  important  and  the  significant 
in  what  Belgium  had  to  offer.  But  there  is  another 
sort  of  significance  which  must  be  taken  into  account: 
the  significance  of  the  great  mass,  the  average.  Our 
critical  treatment  of  literature  and  art  tends  to  adopt 
scientific  methods;  the  process  has  its  advantages,  for 
in  the  last  analysis  the  art  of  no  country  can  be  judged 
solely  by  its  most  striking  products.  The  plays  of 
Maeterlinck  are,  on  the  whole,  not  successful  as  drama; 
the  dramatic  poems  of  Verhaeren  have  little  claim 
upon  our  consideration  as  acting  plays:  these  are  the 
striking  products  of  Belgian  drama  —  if  by  this  we 
mean  every  similar  work  cast  in  the  "dramatic"  mold. 
Have  the  Belgians  then  no  plays?  The  two  plays  here 
translated  will,  it  is  hoped,  prove  that  they  have.  Both 
were  produced  in  Belgium  by  Belgian  actors,  accepted 
by  the  limited  public  interested  in  indigenous  work, 
and  praised  by  Belgian  critics. 

Gustave  Vanzype  has  not  inaptly  been  called  the 
Curel  of  the  Belgian  stage.  Such  sobriquets  are  com- 
mon among  Belgian  authors,  but  their  application 
hardly  ever  results  in  anything  but  confusion.  Van- 
zype's  mind  is  somewhat  akin  to  that  of  the  author  of 
Les  Fossiles;  both  dramatists  are  interested  rather  in 
the  curious  and  the  unusual  in  human  psychology 
than  the  normal;  both  have  a  touch  of  the  morbid,  but 
beyond  this  the  comparison  should  not  be  allowed  to 


PREFACE  vii 


extend.  Curel  has  no  message,  he  is  not  a  writer  of 
thesis  plays;  he  is  at  bottom  an  aristocrat;  Vanzype 
believes  that  dramatists  ought  to  use  the  stage  as  a 
pulpit.  Curel  takes  an  individual  case  and  makes  of 
it  an  interesting  story,  sometimes  a  deep  study  in 
human  character;  Vanzype  attempts  to  generalize,  to 
draw  conclusions  which  may  affect  the  morals  and  the 
intellect  of  mankind.  In  his  article  on  CurePs  La 
nouvelle  Idole,  he  says:  "I  believe  that  the  stage  is  a 
pulpit,  and  that  the  dramatist,  whether  he  wills  it  or 
not  —  exercises  an  influence  over  his  audience;  he  has 
no  right  to  neglect  or  leave  to  chance  the  source  of 
that  influence,  and  allow  it  to  spread  at  random.  — 
He  has  the  right  to  expose  everything,  but  he  ought  to 
give  his  opinion,  indicate  his  approbation  or  disap- 
probation of  whatever  happens.  And  if,  in  order  to 
flatter,  please,  or  amuse,  the  dramatist  refuses  to  ac- 
cept the  role  of  preacher  and  commentator,  if  he  makes 
evil  attractive,  or  ridicules  virtue  and  beauty,  he 
transforms  a  great  and  powerful  art  into  a  despicable 
and  dangerous  trade.  .  .  .  He  must  keep  within  the 
domain  of  the  everlastingly  great  ideas  and  concep- 
tions." It  is,  I  think,  worth  while  to  quote  a  few 
further  extracts  from  Vanzype's  own  critical  utter- 
ances, because  they  form  a  sort  of  declaration  of  faith 
and  express  not  only  this  particular  dramatist's  ideals, 
but  the  aspirations  of  a  group  of  playwrights  and  critics 
whose  aim  was  to  create  a  national  Belgian  drama, 
distinct  from  the  ordinary  importations  from  Paris. 
In  his  criticism  of  Le  Renouveau  du  theatre,  which 
appeared  in  1897,  Vanzype  writes  (in  the  Revue  de 
Belgique) : 


viii  PREFACE 


"You  must  first  make  yourself  understood,  assemble 
your  audience,  and  speak  the  language  it  understands. 
This  is  far  more  worth  while  than  speaking  a  more 
elevated  language  in  the  middle  of  the  desert.  .  .  . 

"The  public  has  a  right  to  come  to  the  theater  for 
amusement,  to  throw  off  all  the  cares  imposed  upon  it 
by  the  preoccupations  and  cares  of  life.  The  whole 
art  of  the  dramatist  consists  in  introducing  an  idea 
or  ideas  into  the  events  he  sets  forth.  .  .  . 

"But  the  true  power,  the  true  genius,  of  the  drama- 
tist is  in  not  formulating  general  ideas.  Genius  in 
this  high  form  of  art  is  altogether  a  matter  of  sugges- 
tion, mental  suggestion,  so  to  speak.  The  human 
event  set  forth  must  be  presented  with  such  grandeur 
and  largeness  of  effect  that  the  succession  of  events 
which  go  to  make  it  up,  and  the  characters  which 
determine  these  events,  form  a  gradual  ascent,  a  logical 
sequence,  which  will  set  forth  the  idea  without  having 
it  definitely  spoken  by  the  actor:  the  conclusion  must 
stand  forth  self-evident.  During  the  play,  the  auditor 
must  be  dominated  by  the  play,  become  a  part  of  it, 
and  he  must  be  made  to  think  and  feel  with  the  author 
at  the  drop  of  the  final  curtain.  He  must  not  think 
and  analyze  for  himself  until  afterward,  because  while 
the  play  is  being  acted  before  his  eyes,  he  has  no  time 
to  consider.  A  play  is  not  a  book  which  you  may  keep 
and  open  at  will,  and  think  over.  In  a  play  the  pages 
are  not  turned  by  the  reader:  they  pass,  and  he  cannot 
stop  them.  This  is  why  the  dramatist  must  not  set 
forth  any  complicated  idea;  he  must  be  simple  and 
clear,  for  it  is  imperative  that  the  audience  understand 
immediately. 


PREFACE  ix 


"If  the  dramatist  refuses  to  submit  to  this  condition, 
without  which  a  play  fails  to  accomplish  its  purpose,  if 
he  thus  refuses  to  write  for  the  audience  which  is  the 
sole  excuse  for  the  existence  of  the  dramatic  form,  why 
does  he  write  plays?  Why  not  simply  write  books?  .  .  . 

"I  firmly  believe  that  the  theater  needs  new  blood, 
and  I  regret  .  .  .  that  we  have  to  go  to  Paris  for  what 
we  do  get.  .  .  . 

"What  we  are  interested  in  is  the  true  play,  written 
by  the  artist.  Our  drama  needs  renovation,  doubtless, 
but  not  as  to  form  —  unless  we  attempt  to  make 
clearer  and  more  concise;  we  need  new  and  fresh  ideas. 
Let  us  avoid  everything  but  the  rapid  exposition  of 
action  and  keep  only  what  movement  and  action  are 
absolutely  required  to  force  the  spectator  to  reflect.  .  .  . 

"The  only  works  of  art  that  survive  are  those  in 
which  the  artist  has  been  able  to  magnify  the  common 
things  in  life,  the  ideas,  sensations,  and  facts  which 
are  common  to  all  ages.  If  he  has  been  able  to  do  this 
in  all  simplicity,  and  call  forth  all  the  power  and  beauty 
in  them,  without  additional  comment,  he  has  succeeded. 
This  genuine  artist  has  made  the  spectator  his  own 
critic  and  commentator.  .  .  . 

"We  must  therefore  return  to  tradition,  the  sane 
and  healthy  tradition  of  the  theater.  We  are  forced 
to  it  inevitably,  because  we  need  no  new  forms.  It 
is  the  function  of  a  good  play  to  do  this:  present 
characters  in  action  which  is  proper  and  fitting  to  their 
interests  and  intelligence,  and  thereby  interest  and 
arouse  emotion  in  the  audience.  But  these  characters 
must  be  so  set  forth  and  then-  acts  so  combined  and 
unified  and  conducted,  that  their  story  shall  stand 


PREFACE 


forth  as  a  sort  of  lesson,  not  as  a  result  of  definitely 
stated  ideas  and  precepts,  but  unconsciously,  as  it 
were,  and  spontaneously.  This  sort  of  play  will  differ 
from  the  play  of  the  past  only  in  subject-matter, 
which  must  be  such  as  to  interest  the  audience  of  the 
present  time." 

In  Vanzype's  appreciative  criticism  of  Curel's  La 
nouvelle  Idole,  above  quoted,  he  proclaims  the  right  of 
the  dramatist  to  preach.  The  excerpts  from  the  other 
article  prove  that  Vanzype's  ideas  are  not  quite  so 
narrow  as  they  may  at  first  have  seemed.  He  believes 
that  a  play  may  or  rather  must  contain  an  idea,  but 
on  the  condition  that  that  idea  is  not  palpably  dem- 
onstrated. At  the  very  end  of  his  Curel  article  he 
says:  "Before  the  audience  will  consent  to  listen  to 
ideas  in  the  theater,  it  insists  on  seeing  human  beings 
like  itself,  struggling  against  the  problems  of  life.  .  .  . 
It  is  not  enough  in  the  theater  to  express  an  idea,  it 
must  rather  be  made  to  develop  out  of  an  event  or  a 
situation;  the  audience  will  not  accept  an  abstract 
idea  until  it  has  been  proven  by  experience." 

True  to  his  faith,  Vanzype  has  expressed  great  ideas 
and  conceptions  in  his  best  plays,  but  as  the  dramatist 
must,  he  has  expressed  them  in  specific  terms.  At 
times  he  generalizes,  and  becomes  a  sort  of  preacher, 
but  at  his  best,  as  in  Les  fitapes  and  La  Souveraine,  he 
allows  his  audience  to  draw  its  own  conclusions. 

At  first  sight  La  Souveraine  (here  translated  as 
Mother  Nature)  belongs  to  the  already  too  numerous 
class  of  plays  with  an  idea;  it  is,  however,  one  of  those 
plays  in  which  the  idea  takes  shape  afterward.  As 
with  Brieux's  La  Robe  Rouge,  the  audience  becomes  so 


PREFACE  xi 


interested  in  the  story  and  the  characters  that  the 
central  idea  is  not  driven  home  until  after  the  close  of 
the  play.  A  comparison  of  La  Souveraine  with  a  play 
like  Damaged  Goods  will  at  once  reveal  the  difference 
between  a  frank  thesis  play  and  a  play  with  an  idea. 
Brieux  wrote  his  tract  to  state  certain  facts,  to  educate 
a  certain  portion  of  his  public,  and  to  call  to  the  at- 
tention of  the  government  the  necessity  for  legal  re- 
form. In  order  to  do  this,  he  was  forced  to  interpolate 
long  discourses  in  his  first  act,  and  to  sacrifice  almost 
the  whole  of  the  last.  As  a  play,  Damaged  Goods  is  a 
failure;  its  effect  on  public  education  and  legal  reform 
is  another  matter.  In  La  Souveraine,  Vanzype  has 
no  definite  lesson  to  set  forth:  he  is  content  to  allow 
his  characters  to  work  out  their  destiny  in  an  interest- 
ing story.  He  may  justly  be  criticized,  however,  for 
some  exaggeration  in  the  character  of  Olivier.  As 
with  Paul  Leglay  in  Les  titapes  (Progress)  we  cannot 
help  feeling  that  the  dramatist  has  forced  a  note  in 
making  Olivier  too  rigid,  in  order  to  secure  a  more 
striking  contrast  with  Renee.  The  dramatist  was,  of 
course,  interested  in  Renee 's  story,  and  Olivier  is  after 
all  only  a  subsidiary  figure,  a  foil;  but  wherever  any 
artist  exaggerates  in  one  part  of  his  work,  the  rest 
must  in  some  degree  suffer.  Similarly,  in  Les  fitapes, 
Paul  is  made  a  little  too  rigid,  and  Madeleine  a  trifle 
too  stubborn. 

Vanzype's  indebtedness  to  Frangois  de  Curel  is  ap- 
parent in  most  of  his  work,  though  Les  Liens  is  not  a 
little  reminiscent  of  Ghosts.  His  ideas  are  thoroughly 
modern,  he  sees  struggles  in  the  daily  Life  of  the  middle 
classes  which  are  eminently  fitted  for  dramatic  presen- 


xii  PREFACE 


tation,  but  behind  the  petty  struggles  of  doctors  and 
scientists  and  artists,  we  are  made  to  feel  the  presence 
of  the  eternal  struggles. 

The  obvious  shortcomings  of  the  two  plays  in  this 
volume  detract  very  little  from  their  dramatic  effect. 
There  is  a  grandeur  of  conception,  a  sweep,  an  under- 
current of  passion  and  throbbing  life  which  are  truly 
representative  of  the  rather  somber  but  vital  character 
of  the  Belgians. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

GUSTAVE  VANZYPE  AND  THE  MODERN  BELGIAN 

DRAMA v 

MOTHER  NATURE  (La  Souveraine) 1 

PROGRESS  (Les  Etapes) 83 


MOTHER  NATURE 

(La  Souveraine) 

A   COMEDY  IN  THREE   ACTS 

La  Souveraine  was  first  produced  at  the  Theatre 
Moliere,  Brussels,  in  1899 


A  WORD 

I  believe  that  a  good  play  needs  no  preface,  that  it  is 
sufficient  in  itself  to  express  thoughts  completely. 

It  is  not  my  intention  to  comment  on  La  Souveraine 
in  this  place;  either  the  idea  stands  out  clearly  and 
comment  is  rendered  superfluous,  or  else  it  is  not  clear, 
in  which  case  the  play  is  not  worth  a  preface. 

But  I  wish  to  explain  myself  on  one  point,  because  I 
would  clear  up  a  misunderstanding  created  perhaps 
by  those  who  did  not  like  the  play.  There  are  some  who 
insisted  that  Olivier  was  a  satire  on  the  artist,  the 
true  artist.  This  is  quite  absurd.  He  who  writes  in 
Belgium,  especially  for  the  theater,  where  he  can  hope 
for  nothing  except  the  satisfaction  of  having  created, 
and  of  having  at  great  cost  deserved  the  esteem  of 
the  very  small  public  interested  in  good  things,  and 
especially  when  he  is  so  fortunate  as  to  find  so  dis- 
interested a  manager  as  M.  Munie  and  such  devoted 
artists  as  those  of  the  company  of  the  Theatre  Moliere 
—  such  a  one,  I  say,  is  inspired  by  the  ambition  to  be 
an  artist  himself,  and  he  would  never  think  of  poking 
fun  at  his  brother-workers  who  are  inspired  by  the 
very  same  ambition. 

But  if  he  feels  the  profoundest  respect  for  the  real 
artist,  on  the  other  hand  he  suffers  and  is  irritated  at 
the  noisy  racket  of  certain  false  esthetes,  who  think 
that  a  season  box  at  fashionable  concerts,  the  possession 

2 


A  WORD  3 

of  a  few  objects  of  art,  and  chatter  about  some  obscure 
poet  or  forgotten  painter  entitle  them  to  the  position 
and  dignity  of  an  artist.  He  is  well  aware  of  the  evil 
and  danger  of  these  sterile  cynics,  who  smile  disdainfully 
at  all  that  bears  fruit,  and  at  sincere  work  of  any  sort. 
He  knows  that  the  public  which  listens  to  them,  having 
nothing  better  to  do  with  its  time,  often  allows  itself 
to  be  intimidated  and  influenced,  to  the  detriment  of 
every  conscientious  and  dignified  effort  of  true  artists. 

When  the  follies  and  absurdities  and  f utility  of  such 
charlatans  are  exposed  in  public,  there  is  no  harm  done 
to  the  real  artists;  these  are  rather  defended  against 
their  worst  enemies. 

This  was  what  I  wished  incidentally  to  do  in  this 
play;  incidentally,  only  because  I  have  tried  to  do 
more  than  merely  satirize.  But  this  was  the  only 
point  I  wished  to  explain;  I  have  nothing  to  add  to  the 
whole  play,  which  must,  good  or  bad,  stand  on  its  own 
merits. 

GUSTAVE  VANZTPB 
March  29,  1899. 


Persons  in  the  play: 
OLIVIER 
MERYAC 

HEURTOUX,  Renee's  father 
DARCHI,  Olivier's  father 


RENEE 

BLANCHE,  Olivier's  sister 

KLARY 

MADAME  HEURTOUX 

A  MAID 

The  scene  is  the  drawing-room  in  Olivier's  home,  pre- 
sumably in  a  large  city  of  Belgium.  The  time  is  the 
present. 


MOTHER  NATURE 

ACT   I 

The  scene  is  a  drawing-room  used  as  a  study.  At  the 
back  is  a  large  French  window,  with  heavy  curtains  drawn 
halfway  across.  There  are  entrances  right  and  left. 
To  the  left  is  a  piano.  Various  small  pieces  of  furniture 
of  stained  wood,  English  style.  Pictures  around  the 
walls,  plaster  casts  of  Gothic  sculpture,  and  engravings. 
The  general  effect  is  a  strange  one,  for  the  decorator  has 
evidently  sought  after  novelty. 

Renee  and  Mme.  Heurtoux  are  present  as  the  curtain 
rises. 

RENEE 

It's  a  sad  confession,  mother.     I  don't  know  whether 
I  have  courage  to  tell  you. 

MME.    HEURTOUX 

But  I  asked  you.     And  to  whom  else  would  you 
confess  if  not  to  your  mother?    How  long  has  this 
been  going  on? 
RENEE 
Always. 

MME.   HEURTOUX 

Always?    But  —  the  first  days,  Renee? 

RENEE 

They  were  no  different  from  now. 
5 


MOTHER  NATURE 


MME.   HEUKTOUX 

What! 

RENEE 

I  didn't  understand  then.  In  spite  of  all  my  con- 
fusion I  felt  instinctively  that  there  was  something 
else.  I  didn't  know. 

MME.   HEURTOUX 

But  just  after  your  marriage  ?    The  first  few  days  ? 

RENEE 

Even  during  the  first  few  days,  during  the  moments 
which  other  women  remember,  moments  of  tender- 
ness, passion,  intoxication,  he  was  cold  and  calm, 
insultingly  calm! 

MME.    HEURTOUX 

Has  he  always  been  that  way? 

RENEE 

Always. 

MME.    HEURTOUX 

Did  you  never  talk  to  him,  try  to  bring  him  closer 
to  you? 

RENEE 

Oh,  yes,  after  I  came  to  see  that  that  was  the  only 
possible  way  he  could  love  me. 

MME.    HEURTOUX 

What  did  he  say  ? 

RENEE 

He  advanced  theories  and  gave  me  long  lectures  on 
reason  —  which  he  never  forgets,  even  when  he 
kisses  me! 

MME.    HEURTOUX 

Does  he  try  to  justify  himself? 


MOTHER  NATURE 


RENEE 

He  talked  of  all  sorts  of  principles.  He  thinks 
I'm  ridiculous.  He  gets  impatient  with  me,  and 
sometimes  even  angry.  (She  hides  her  face  in  her 
hands)  If  he'd  only  left  me  —  !  Oh,  mother,  how 
can  I  tell  you  —  ? 

MME.  HEURTOUX  (going  to  Renee  and  taking  her  hands, 
then,  ill  at  ease,  says  hesitatingly) 
Come,  dearie,  now  —  you  —  see  —  is  —  Olivier  still 
your  husband? 

RENEE 

When  —  he  is  —  I  feel  so  degraded  and  ashamed. 
I'm  ashamed  because  every  time  I  hope  my  love 
will  change  him.  But  —  no  — .  Oh,  mother,  I'm  so 
humiliated,  so  disgusted! 

MME.   HEURTOUX 

Poor  child!     But  you  mustn't  give  up  hope  — 

RENEE 

What  hope?  That  he  will  change?  That  all  at 
once  he  will  become  another  man,  and  love  his  wife 
in  a  simple  way,  without  thought  and  reason  and 
all  that?  Impossible! 

MME.   HEURTOUX 

Perhaps  —  you'll  have  the  consolation  —  of  —  some 
one  else  —  to  love,  some  one  who  will  fill  your  life  — 
RENEE  (burying  her  face  again  in  her  hands) 

Dearest  mamma,  that's  just  what  he  doesn't  want! 
I'm  desperate.  Oh,  if  I  had  a  child,  if  I  could  even 
hope  to  have  one,  I'd  be  resigned  to  having  my 
early  dreams  go  as  they  have  gone.  The  child  could 
give  me  all  the  happiness  and  tenderness  that  I 


MOTHER  NATURE 


miss  now.  But  I  can't  even  look  forward  to  that. 
That  is  why  I  can't  forget  now.  He's  wounded 
me  —  I  can't  get  over  it;  he  himself  couldn't  make 
everything  all  right  again.  I  can't  even  be  the  wife 
I  want  to  be,  that  I  would  have  been  if  he  hadn't 
crushed  all  the  good  instincts  out  of  me  with  his 
scepticism,  his  talk,  and  his  everlasting  analysis. 
You  understand  how  revolting  it  all  is,  don't  you, 
mother? 

MME.    HEURTQTTX 

Of  course  I  understand,  dear,  but  you  see,  I  'm  always 
afraid  of  misunderstanding  things  nowadays.  It's 
all  so  different  from  what  it  was  in  my  day:  when 
I  was  a  young  woman,  people  did  less  discussing  and 
reasoning.  Of  course,  we  were  afraid  of  having  too 
many  children  — 
RENEE 

Yes,  but  you  had  them  first!  And  you  didn't  force 
young  girls  into  marriage.  I  'm  so  miserable,  mother! 
If  I  had  only  a  —  child  —  !  Perhaps  I  should  have 
understood,  afterward.  A  tender  and  pure  little 
life  would  have  brightened  my  own. 

MME.   HEURTOUX 

But  Olivier  still  loves  you  ? 

RENEE 

He  does  not  love  me.  He  does  nothing  but  talk  and 
talk  and  try  to  prove  that  love  is  the  result  of  a 
pathological  predisposition.  He  talks  about  atavism 
and  neurosis!  He  doesn't  love  me.  He  analyses 
love  too  much  to  know  how  to  love. 

MME.    HEURTOUX 

He  is  at  least  intelligent? 


MOTHER  NATURE  9 

RENEE 

He  has  a  brain,  but  that's  not  the  same  thing,  mother. 
It 's  a  matter  of  pride  with  him  to  have  only  a  brain, 
and  to  stifle  everything  else  that  makes  a  man:  love, 
passion,  the  sweet  and  holy  follies,  sublimely  un- 
reasonable —  the  things  that  make  you  happy. 
He's  just  a  brain.  There  are  many  others  like  him 
nowadays. 

MME.   HEURTOUX 

You   frighten   me,    Renee.     Don't   you   love   your 
husband  any  more? 
RENEE 

It  makes  no  difference  to  him  whether  I  do  nor  not. 
If  he  found  out  I  didn't  care  for  him,  he  would 
deliver  a  long-winded  lecture  on  the  psychology 
of  my  case. 

MME.    HEURTOUX 

What  things  you  say!    Surely  you're  exaggerating! 

RENEE 

Not  at  all.     You  don't  know  him. 

MME.    HEURTOUX 

You  seem  almost  to  hate  him. 

RENEE 

I  don't  hate  him.  But  everything  about  him  dis- 
gusts me:  everything  he  does  and  says  strikes  at 
what  is  best  in  me.  His  detestable  intellect  crushes 
everything  good  and  beautiful  in  life,  everything 
you  have  taught  me  to  respect,  everything  that  I 
feel  is  true  —  even  life  itself. 
MME.  HEURTOUX  (after  a  pause) 

Renee,  look  at  me.  You  aren't  in  love  with  any  one 
else? 


10  MOTHER  NATURE 

RENEE  (looking  her  mother  straight  in  the  eyes) 

No,  mother. 
MME.  HEUBTOUX  (surprised) 

Indeed?    You  don't  even  protest? 

RENEE 

I  don't  love  any  one  —  at  least,  any  one  I  can  name, 
any  one  I  know.  But  I  do  love,  as  I  did  when  I  was 
a  young  girl  and  dreamed  of  the  future,  of  a  husband 
who  would  not  consider  me  with  his  brain  alone, 
but  one  who  would  reason  and  love  with  his  heart 
and  his  passions  —  a  man,  a  real  man !  But  I  give 
you  my  word,  I  am  not  in  love  with  any  one.  In 
spite  of  all  my  unhappiness,  I  am  a  faithful  wife. 

MME.    HEURTOUX 

You  must  continue  to  be  that,  Renee;  you  must  be 
brave  and  do  your  duty  to  the  end.     Who  knows, 
everything  passes  away  and  is  forgotten?     If  your 
husband  — 
RENEE  (bitterly) 

Poor  mother!    — Sh,  here  he  comes.     If  he  heard 
you  talking  about  courage  and  duty,  he  would  make 
fun  of  you  and  ask  you  for  definitions. 
\_Enter  Olivier,  followed  by  Darchi  and  Heurtoux. 

OLIVIER 

In  your  day!  Your  day!  Of  course,  my  dear 
father-in-law,  in  your  day  people  didn't  think  as 
they  do  now.  Ideas  have  gone  — 

HEURTOUX 

Forward  or  backward? 

DARCHI 

Why,  forward!  Humanity  never  goes  back.  Prog- 
ress — 


MOTHER  NATURE  11 

OLIVIER  (interrupting) 

To  adhere  to  the  ideas  of  your  youth  is,  I  repeat, 
a  deplorable  thing. 

HEURTOUX 

Well,  I'm  old  — 

OLIVIER 

So  is  my  father.    He  is  as  old  as  you. 

DARCHI 

Nonsense,  I'm  fifty  years  younger! 

OLIVIER  (to  Heurtoux) 

True.  He  has  been  able  to  discard  the  sentimentality 
that  clung  round  him.  He  has  disciplined  his  mind 
and  adopted  the  strict  methods  of  modern  analysis, 
which  submits  everything  to  the  acid  test  of  reason. 
It  is  our  aim  to  act  with  discernment,  to  escape  the 
ready-made  notions  which  are  not  under  the  control 
of  our  intellects,  and  the  absurd  consequences  of 
giving  in  to  the  passions.  We  bring  each  thought 
and  act  to  the  tribunal  of  dispassionate  judgment, 
and  base  our  deductions  on  the  foundation  of  modern 
science  and  philosophy.  We  deny  the  intangible. 
Nietszche  — 

DARCHI 
There's  a  master  mind  for  you! 

MME.    HEURTOUX 

Have  you  read  him,  Monsieur  Darchi?  Explain  his 
theory.  I'm  deeply  interested. 

DARCHI  (embarrassed) 

I  know  his  theories  very  well — oh,  yes.  Olivier  often 
talks  about  him.  But  the  whole  thing  is  rather 


MOTHER  NATURE 


complicated.  You  ought  to  have  some  preliminary 
preparation  if  I  am  going  to  explain  him  to  you. 
Isn't  that  so,  Olivier? 

OLIVIER 
Of  course. 

HEURTOUX  (to  Renee) 

Do  you  know  why  Olivier  tells  me  all  these  interesting 
things?  Because  I  refuse  to  grant  that  a  husband 
has  the  right  to  deceive  his  wife!  (Smiling)  Now 
you're  warned  ! 

RENEE 

I  know  what  he  thinks  about  that. 

HEURTOUX  (still  smiling) 
Aren't  you  worried? 

OLIVIER  (seated  at  his  desk,  turning  the  pages  of  a  book) 
Renee  knows  I  am  master  of  my  passions.  It  is  my 
aim  to  be  a  strong  man.  Now,  the  strong  man  can 
be  strong  only  after  freeing  himself  from  the  bondage 
of  his  senses,  his  passions.  But  just  because  I  am 
freeing  myself,  I  can  see  that  others  are  still  slaves. 
Those  who  have  succeeded  ought  to  be  free  to  dis- 
pose of  their  persons  as  they  see  fit. 

DARCHI 

Certainly.  You  must  look  at  it  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  artist.  Heavens  and  earth,  my  poor 
Heurtoux,  how  out-of-date  you  are! 

HEURTOUX 

Perhaps  I  am.  But  you  see,  I  can't  make  up  my 
mind,  and  never  will,  to  abolish  everything  that  has 
brought  me  peace  and  happiness.  I  don't  know 
whether  it's  because  I'm  prejudiced  or,  as  you  say, 
out-of-date,  but  I  always  held  what  were  called  in  my 


MOTHER  NATURE  13 

day  liberal  ideas,  and  I  never  had  much  respect  for 
the  conventions.  But  there  are  some  conventions 
that  are  absolutely  necessary,  that  are  based  on  the 
necessities  of  human  society  and  the  consideration 
of  one  man  for  another.  Conjugal  fidelity  or  if 
you  prefer,  the  fidelity  of  one  lover  to  the  other,  is 
one  of  them.  A  man  and  a  woman  who  love  each 
other  are  naturally  jealous,  and  even  when  they 
don't  love  each  other  or  if  one  of  them  ceases  to  love 
the  other,  it  seems  to  me  a  beautiful  thing  for  them 
to  remain  faithful;  it  spares  pain  and  wounded 
pride.  Of  course,  you  call  that  rank  sentiment  — 
OLIVIER 

Yes,  because  among  intelligent  people,  people  who 
use  their  reason,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  jealousy 
and  that  sort  of  pride.  Those  things  are  mere 
words. 

DARCHI 
They've  gone  out  of  fashion  long  ago! 

RENEE 

They  are  as  old  as  the  world,  because  they  express 
sentiments  and  passions  whose  very  existence  you 
complain  of.  But  the  things  themselves  have  not 
changed  since  man  was  first  created,  since  the  first 
human  being  said  "I  love  you!"  to  the  other,  and  his 
mate  naturally  asked,  "For  always?"  —  I  prefer 
that.  It  makes  the  function  of  love  a  noble  and 
beautiful  act,  and  not  a  base  instinct. 

DARCHI  (laughing} 

"For  always!"  Ha!  ha,  For  always!  Poor  little 
Renee! 


14  MOTHER  NATURE 

OLIVIEB 

The  same  delusion,  the  same  mistake!  You  try  to 
impose  an  unnecessary  yoke  on  the  man.  Why? 

HEURTOUX 

To  spare  others'  pain. 

OLIVIER 

That  is  not  his  affair.  Let  them  defend  themselves, 
together  with  their  absurd  sentimentality. 

HEURTOUX 

My  dear  Olivier,  if  I  didn't  know  you,  I  would  think 
you  quite  ferocious. 

OLIVIER  (disdainfully) 

Not  at  all;  I  am  simply  a  reasonable  human  being, 
and  I  have  great  respect  for  logic.  You  don't 
understand  me,  you  cannot  understand  me,  because 
you  are  not  ready  to  look  at  these  things  dispassion- 
ately, and  analyze  them  on  the  basis  of  the  great 
scientific  and  philosophical  facts  of  which  you  are 
quite  ignorant. 

HEURTOUX  (good-naturedly) 
That's  true. 

DARCHI 

You  see,  old  man,  you  must  know! 

HEURTOUX 

I  don't  know,  but  I  believe  that  there  are  certain 
human  relationships  in  which  science  and  philosophy 
count  for  nothing.  I've  been  married  for  thirty 
years,  I've  made  my  wife  happy,  brought  up 
children  — 
OLIVIER  (interrupting) 

Who  are  needlessly  suffering  because  you  have  devel- 
oped their  emotions  —  your  daughter,  for  instance. 


MOTHER  NATURE  15 

HETJRTOUX  (seriously) 

Suffering?    Renee,  have  you  anything  to  complain 

of?    Were  you  ever  unhappy  through  any  fault  of 

mine? 
RENEE 

I  am  happy,  and  I  am  glad  to  be  what  you  made  me, 

father.     If  I  suffer  sometimes,  it  is  not  your  fault. 

I  am  proud  that  I  can  suffer  that  way. 
HEURTOUX  (anxiously) 

But  you  do  suffer?    Why?    Aren't  you  happy ? 
OLIVIER  (indifferently) 

I  really  didn't  know  — 
RENEE 

It  makes  no  difference,  father.     I  meant  I  suffer 

once  in  a  while,  the  way  every  one  does.    You  mustn't 

worry  about  it. 
MME.  HEURTOUX  (taking  Renee's  hand) 

Brave  girl! 
OLIVIER 

I  don't  think  Renee  knows  what  she's  talking  about. 

Very  often  she  is  upset  and  worried,  and  — 
HEURTOUX  (conciliatory) 

She  is  very  sensitive,  Olivier.     You  must  take  that 

into  account.     I  don't  think  you'd  be  capable  of 

wounding  her  intentionally,  but  — 
RENEE 

Please,  father! 
DARCHI 

Now,  now,  let's  not  have  a  family  quarrel!    Tears 

and  all  that!    Octave  Feuillet  nonsense!    I'm  going! 
HEURTOUX 

Be  serious,  Darchi. 


16  MOTHER  NATURE 

DARCHI 

Never!    It's  too  stupid. 

HEUBTOUX 

Isn't  it  only  natural  that  I  should  consider  my 
daughter's  happiness?    Of  course,  I  have  confidence 
in  your  son  — 
DARCHI 

My  dear  fellow,  do  you  imagine  a  boy  like  Olivier, 
a  keen  observer  and  psychologist,  doesn't  know  how 
to  handle  women?  My  son! 

MME.   HEURTOUX 

We  are  not  discussing  "women";  this  concerns 
Renee. 

RENEE 

Father!     Mother!    This  is  all  very  painful  to  me. 
Please  don't  worry  about  what  I  just  said.     I  was 
speaking  generalities. 
OLIVIER 

It  was  wrong  of  you,  my  dear,  especially  before 
your  highly  emotional  and  excitable  parents. 
[Blanche  opens  the  door. 

BLANCHE 

May  I  come  in  ? 

RENEE 

Surely. 

[Enter  Blanche,  followed  by  Andre  and  Heryac,  who 

wears  hunting  clothes. 

BLANCHE 

Here  we  are!  How  are  you?  We've  brought  your 
cousin  Meryac.  We  just  happened  to  meet  him, 
but  he  didn't  want  to  come. 


MOTHER  NATURE  17 

ANDRE 

He  didn't  think  he  looked  beautiful  enough. 
MERYAC  (to  Renee) 

I  beg  your  pardon,  Madame,  these  clothes  —  I've 

been  hunting. 
RENEE 

But  this  is  the  country,  Monsieur  Meryac,  and  we 

are  neighbors. 
OLIVIER 

What  a  singular  passion ! 

BLANCHE 

What? 

OLIVIER 

Hunting. 

MERYAC 

It  is  not  a  passion  with  me.  But  I  love  movement 
and  outdoors.  Hunting  serves  as  a  good  pretext 
for  riding  up  hill  and  down  dale.  I  delude  myself 
into  thinking  I  have  a  definite  end  in  view. 

OLIVIER 

Can't  you  '  satisfy  your  desire  without  actually 
hunting? 

MERYAC 

I  hardly  hunt  at  all,  only,  as  I  told  you,  I  like  to  have 
an  object  in  view.  I  need  it.  When  I  have  a  little 
leisure  time  from  business  and  go  even  for  a  walk, 
I  must  have  some  destination. 

OLIVIER 

Action  mania! 

MERYAC  (smiling) 
The  desire  for  action,  yes ! 


18  MOTHER  NATURE 

BLANCHE  (to  Olivier) 

You  all  look  so  serious.     What  were  you  discussing, 

Monsieur  Brother? 
OLIVIER 

A  very  involved  matter.     You  wouldn't  understand. 
HEURTOUX 

I  think  she  would  understand  very  easily. 
ANDRE  (to  Olivier) 

Would  I? 

OLIVIER 

No. 

BLANCHE 

Unfortunately,  because  every  one  should  understand 
in  the  family. 

HEURTOUX  (to  Meryac,  who  now  stands  by  Renee) 

You  were  speaking  of  your  factory.     I  'm  very  much 
interested.     Shall  we  go  into  the  garden?     I  want 
to  ask  you  something. 
\_They  go  out,  Renee  following  them  with  her  eyes. 

DARCHI  (to  Blanche) 

You  talk  like  a  middle-class  housewife.  When 
you're  dealing  with  a  great  intellect  like  your 
brother's,  a  man  engaged  in  such  deep  thinking, 
isn't  it  only  natural  that  the  points  discussed  should 
reach  a  level  to  which  no  woman's  mind  can  attain? 

BLANCHE 

Oh?  You're  very  gallant.  Andre  always  explains 
when  I  don't  understand,  and  I  always  see.  And 
Andre  is  no  fool.  We  "raise  each  other,"  as  it  were, 
to  that  "level"  you  were  speaking  of.  And  when 
we  get  there,  we  don't  talk,  we  are  glad  enough 
merely  to  feel,  like  good  middle-class  people  —  which 


MOTHER  NATURE  19 

we  are.     But  with  the  two  children,  I  haven't  much 

time  for  the  "heights."     I  bring  up  my  children  — 

which  is  more  important. 
ANDRE  (who   has   meantime   seated   himself,   rises   and 

goes  to  another  chair) 

And  just  as  "elevated." 
RENEE 

How  are  they? 

ANDRE 

Bab  had  an  attack  of  tonsilitis.    We  were  very 
much  upset. 

MME.   HEURTOUX 

Poor  little  dear! 

RENEE 

Is  he  better  now? 

BLANCHE 

He's  well.    Otherwise,  you  may  be  sure  we  shouldn't 
be  here. 

OLIVIER  (nervously) 
Of  course,  of  course. 

DARCHI 

Never  have  a  moment's  peace  with  those  messy 
youngsters! 

BLANCHE 

Papa,  don't  you  philosophize!     You  know  you  adore 
them. 

DARCHI 

There  they  are!    I  don't  dislike  them,  but  I  could 
easily  dispense  with  them. 

ANDRE  (who  shifts  to  another  chair) 
You  yourself  didn't  dispense  with  children!     (Point- 
ing to  his  wife)    There's  the  proof.    Thank  you. 


20  MOTHER  NATURE 

DARCHI 

I  wasn't  thinking  of  you  at  the  time.  No,  I  didn't 
dispense  with  children,  because  when  I  married  there 
were  still  prejudices.  But  if  I  had  my  life  to  live 
over  again  — 

BLANCHE 

You  would  follow  Olivier's  example,  and  not  be 
in  any  hurry.  He  isn't  in  a  hurry  about  anything 
at  all.  We're  waiting  for  his  book.  What  is  it 
called  ? 

OLIVIER  (piqued) 
What? 

DARCHI  (respectfully) 
Cogitations. 

BLANCHE 

Illustrated? 

OLIVIER 

A  complete  book  needs  no  illustrations. 

ANDRE 

That's  not  the  same  title  you  gave  us  a  short  while 
ago? 

OLIVIER 

It's  not  the  same  book. 

ANDRE 

What  about  the  other? 
OLIVIER 

I'm  not  going  to  write  it.     I  wasn't  satisfied. 

BLANCHE 

Well,  try  to  finish  this  one. 
OLIVIER 

It  makes  no  difference  if  I  don't.  I  write  in  order 
to  think. 


MOTHER  NATURE  21 

BLANCHE 

How  funny!  I  thought  people  wrote  after  they  had 
thought. 

MME.    HEURTOUX 

How  unkind  of  you,  Blanche! 
OLIVIER  (disdainfully) 

I  am  used  to  my  sister.     She  doesn't  bother  me.     (To 

Andre,  who  has  just  left  his  chair  again)     What  on 

earth  are  you  doing? 
ANDRE 

I  'm  tired,  and  I  'm  trying  to  rest. 
OLIVIER 

Then  sit  still! 

ANDRE 

I  'd  like  to,  only  I  can't  find  a  chair  — 
OLIVIER 

You  have  plenty  to  choose  from. 

ANDRE 

I  see  that,  but  not  one  of  them  seems  made  to  sit  in. 
They're  pretty,  and  interesting,  but  every  one  of 
them's  damned  uncomfortable.  What  I  want  is  a 
vulgar,  simple,  old-fashioned  armchair,  with  nothing 
artistic  about  it,  where  I  can  rest  my  arms  and  legs 
and  neck.  Have  you  anything  of  that  sort  in  your 
house  ? 

MME.   HEURTOUX 

Come  with  me,  Andre.  I  '11  find  you  one  hi  the  gar- 
den. 

[Olivier  shrugs  his  shoulders. 
ANDRE  (to  Mme.  Heurtoux) 
You're  my  salvation! 


MOTHER  NATURE 


MME.  HEURTOUX  (to  the  others) 
Are  you  coming? 
[She  goes  out  with  Andre. 

OLIVIER 

I  want  a  breath  of  air.     I've  been  overworking  this 
morning. 

DARCHI 

What  have  you  been  doing? 
OLIVIER 

Thinking  about  the  second  chapter  of  my  book. 
DARCHI 

I  '11  come  with  you. 

BLANCHE 

Good!    Renee  and  I  can  have  a  little  chat  together. 
DARCHI  (as  he  leaves) 

Don't  tire  yourself. 

[The  men  go  out. 
BLANCHE  (going  to  Renee  and  taking  her  hands') 

My  dear  Renee!    How  sad  you  look!     What's  the 

matter? 
RENEE 

I'm  not  —  oh,  nothing  —  only  a  little  nervous. 

BLANCHE 

Why  don't  you  tell  me?     I  know  you're  suffering. 
I  love  you  dearly,  and  I  feel  I'm  much  more  your 
sister  than  his. 
RENEE 
Whose  ? 

BLANCHE 

Your  husband's.     It's  funny,  perhaps  it's  terrible, 
but  I've  felt  that  ever  since  you  were  engaged.     I 


MOTHER  NATURE  23 

feel  more  a  member  of  your  family  than  his.  I'm 
so  little  like  him. 

RENEE 

That's  true.  You're  so  good,  Blanche  dear.  And 
you  know  I  love  you,  too.  I  always  like  to  have  you 
here.  You  seem  to  bring  some  of  my  past  life  with 
you,  and  my  childhood  —  a  breath  of  healthy  sunny 
air  into  this  house.  You  are  a  sort  of  living  happi- 
ness; your  life  is  what  I  dreamed  of  when  I  was  just 
awakening  to  life.  You  carry  around  with  you  all 
sorts  of  love,  and  joy,  the  pride  of  motherhood,  of  duty 
gladly  done,  and  a  realization  of  happy  responsi- 
bilities. I  imagine  your  hah*  is  full  of  warm  caresses 
and  your  cheeks  bright  with  children's  kisses. 

BLANCHE 

Renee,  you  are  suffering! 

RENEE 

No,  no,  I'm  not.  But  I  can't  help  feeling  this  way 
when  I  see  you  so  happy,  and  simple,  and  pure,  and 
good.  I'm  romantic,  I  suppose,  but  I  can't  help 
being  thrilled  when  I  see  in  you  the  realization  of 
all  the  dreams  I  dreamed  when  I  was  a  girl  of  fifteen. 
Like  all  girls,  I  closed  my  eyes  and  dreamed  of 
marriage;  I  closed  them  partly  from  embarrassment 
and  partly  in  order  to  see  more  clearly  my  husband 
and  myself,  as  I  imagined  we  would  be.  In  that 
dream  we  were  what  you  and  Andre  really  are: 
two  happy  children,  very  much  in  love,  but  our  love 
was  tempered  with  a  sort  of  dignity;  and  we  looked  at 
life  and  resolved  to  be  supremely  happy,  and  love  each 
other  always,  and  smiled  at  the  thought  of  having  a 


24  MOTHER  NATURE 

family  of  two,  three,  four — I  didn't  stop  to  count,  but 
I  could  see  little  curly  heads  —  !  Oh,  you  are  my 
dream,  the  dream  I  used  to  blush  for  then,  but  now  — 

BLANCHE 

You  regret!    Poor  Renee!    Olivier  is  a  poor  substi- 
tute for  the  husband  of  your  dreams,  isn't  he? 
RENEE  (trying  to  control  herself) 

I  don't  say  that;   I'm  not  complaining  of  Olivier. 

BLANCHE 

I  am  so  sorry  for  you,  Renee.  I  see  how  much  you 
are  suffering.  And  I  know  Olivier  too  well  not  to 
realize  that  your  dream  —  which  is  the  ideal  of 
every  decent,  normal  girl  —  was  doomed  from  the 
beginning.  I  know  him:  he  is  not  bad,  nor  is  he 
good.  He's  dried  up  in  his  formulas;  he  has  regu- 
lated his  instincts  by  rules  —  physiological  and 
psychological  rules.  He  always  thinks  of  people 
as  cases  and  problems,  and  that  has  killed  all  the 
humanity  in  him.  He  has  only  one  object  in  life; 
to  prove  that  everything  accomplished  by  mankind 
before  he  was  born  is  absurd.  He  believes  he  has 
reached  a  very  high  stage  of  development,  but  he 
merely  lives  an  extremely  false  sort  of  life,  made  up 
of  absurd  desires  and  ridiculous  ambitions.  He  is 
one  of  those  who  only  complicate  existence  and  de- 
spise its  simplicity  because  they  can't  understand  it. 
RENEE 

Blanche,  you  are  a  severe  judge! 

BLANCHE 

I  tell  you  this  because  I  know  you  see  him  as  I  do. 
It's  not  altogether  his  fault:  papa  was  too  enthusi- 


MOTHER  NATURE  25 

astic  about  Olivier's  great  progress  as  a  young  man, 
and  he  very  soon  became  a  follower  instead  of  a  guide. 
Poor  papa,  he's  developed  a  temperament,  and  he 
merely  echoes  and  exaggerates  whatever  Olivier 
says,  and  conceals  as  he  would  something  vile  what- 
ever there  is  in  him  of  tenderness  and  feeling  —  or 
else  makes  a  joke  of  it.  Fortunately,  I  know  he  is 
hiding  his  real  feelings,  and  I  love  them.  Poor 
Renee!  You're  so  full  of  the  joy  of  life,  and  so 
sensitive !  You  must  be  very  unhappy. 

RENEE 
I  am. 

BLANCHE 

Won't  you  confide  in  me  —  a  little?  Dearest.  I 
want  to  be  able  to  console  you. 

RENEE 

How  can  you  console  me  ?  I  'm  not  the  sort  of  person 
who  can  be  consoled.  I  have  simply  made  a  mistake : 
I  married  unwisely,  and  I  must  accept  the  conse- 
quences. I  thought  that  a  man  like  Olivier  —  an 
artist,  at  least  an  instinctive  artist  —  would  be 
more  sensitive,  better  than  other  men;  it  must  have 
been  his  ideas  and  his  way  of  talking  that  attracted 
me.  But  that  soon  wore  off.  Now  I  must  try  to 
resign  myself.  It's  too  bad,  though,  because  resig- 
nation is  not  in  my  make-up.  I  have  a  keen  sense 
of  duty,  but  I'm  constantly  afraid  that  the  nervous- 
ness that  keeps  me  up  to  the  mark,  and  which  is 
only  the  result  of  my  pride,  will  some  day  lead  me 
to  break  away  and  do  something  I  might  regret. 
(She  stops  a  moment,  then,  mastering  herself)  But 


26  MOTHER  NATURE 

I  mil  control  myself,  don't  worry,  Blanche  dear. 
You  are  so  good  to  me,  and  I'm  very  grateful  for 
your  frankness  and  your  love,  even  though  you 
can't  do  anything  to  help  me.  I  've  tried  everything 
with  Olivier,  and  as  for  myself,  there's  nothing  left. 
Kiss  me!  (They  kiss.  Andre's  voice  is  heard  in  the 
garden:  "Blanchette,  where  are  you,  Blanchette?" 
There,  go  to  your  husband  in  the  garden.  He's 
bored  when  you  aren't  with  him.  How  you  love  each 
other!  Go  on!  I'll  not  come  with  you.  I  must 
calm  down  a  little. 

BLANCHE 

All  right.  See  you  soon.  (She  goes  out,  saying) 
Here  I  am!  Here  I  am! 

[Renee  goes  and  looks  at  herself  in  the  mirror,  then 
drops,  as  if  in  a  dream,  into  a  chair.  After  a  short 
interval,  enter  Meryac.  Renee  does  not  notice  him. 
He  makes  a  few  steps  toward  her  before  she  is  aware 
of  his  presence.  He  looks  at  her. 

MERYAC 
Madame! 

RENEE 

You,  Monsieur? 

MERYAC 

Have  you  forgiven  me? 

RENEE 

There  is  nothing  to  forgive.  It  isn't  your  fault  that 
you  love  me.  But  I  do  think  you  might  have  spared 
me  by  saying  nothing  about  it.  I  hope  you  realize 
you  had  nothing  to  gain? 


MOTHER  NATURE  27 

MERYAC 

I  love  you  so  deeply,  so  passionately,  that  I  couldn't 
help  telling  you. 

RENEE  (dreamily) 
You  —  love  —  me  — 

MERYAC 

Ever  since  I  came  here  and  saw  you  for  the  first 
time.  You  were  there  at  the  piano,  playing  Grieg's 
Solveig's  Lied.  You  remember  — .  The  picture  is 
as  vivid  as  it  was  then. 

RENEE 

You  ought  never  to  have  spoken. 

MERYAC 

That  was  out  of  the  question.  When  you  are  in 
love,  you  can't  control  yourself.  The  person  who 
can  reason  at  such  a  time  can't  really  be  in  love. 
At  least,  I  can't  imagine  such  self-control.  I  feel; 
I  am  excited;  I  listen  to  my  heart-beats  and  not  the 
voice  of  reason.  I  confess  I'm  impulsive:  I'm  the 
blind  agent  of  forces  that  may  be  a  bit  confused, 
but  I  feel  that  they  are  at  base  absolutely  right. 
They  drive  me  to  love  or  to  hate.  It  may  be  pure 
instinct,  but  there's  something  right  in  it  all  the 
same.  I  have  more  confidence  in  it  than  in  the 
hypothetical  deductions  of  logic.  Try  to  reason  and 
you  find  you  can  reach  diametrically  opposite  con- 
clusions on  the  same  point,  depending  on  where  you 
start.  The  blind  forces  /  give  in  to  drive  me  in  one 
direction,  toward  one  thing  and  one  alone.  That  is 
why  I  love  you,  that  is  what  has  told  me  you  are 
unhappy  — 


28  MOTHER  NATURE 

RENEE 

What  do  you  know  about  it? 

MERYAC 

I  don't  know,  but  I  feel.  That  was  what  drove 
me  to  tell  you  I  loved  you.  I  wouldn't  have 
said  a  word  if  I  had  felt  you  were  happy.  My 
instinct  would  have  told  me  to  hold  my  tongue. 
I  am  ready  to  do  anything  for  you,  carry  you  off 
in  my  arms,  without  stopping  to  consider  right 
or  wrong.  I  love  you,  I  adore  you,  because  — 
because  —  well,  because  I  love  you !  (Renee  has 
meanwhile  risen.  She  looks  fixedly  at  Meryac,  and 
is  deeply  stirred.  There  is  a  pause)  How  you  look 
at  me! 

RENEE 

I  never  heard  any  one  talk  that  way ! 

MERYAC 

You  see?  Your  husband  doesn't  love  you,  and  you 
aren't  happy.  I  felt  sure.  If  I  hadn't,  I  swear  I 
would  never  have  spoken  a  word.  I  would  have  had 
courage.  I  would  have  left  you  to  him  — 

RENEE 

You  will,  my  poor  friend.  I  tell  you  once  for 
all,  I  hold  nothing  against  you,  and  I  even  con- 
fess you  have  made  me  happy,  because  you  have 
given  me  a  new  and  a  fresh  emotion.  Even  though 
I  might  have  allowed  you  to  continue,  even  though 
I  am  unhappy  because  my  husband  doesn't  love 
me  as  I  once  hoped  I  would  be  loved  —  in  spite 
of  all  that,  I  refuse  to  do  anything  I  might  after- 
ward regret. 


MOTHER  NATURE  29 

MERYAC 

But  you  have  the  right  —  ! 
RENEE  (interrupting  him) 

That  same  confused  power  you  spoke  of  a  moment 
ago  tells  me  I  should  be  very  wrong  to  give  in;  it 
tells  me  to  try  to  find  happiness  with  my  husband 
and  to  struggle  till  the  last  shred  of  hope  is  gone. 

MERYAC 

And  then? 
RENEE 

Then  —  if  I  know  I  have  failed  —  then  —  I  don't 
know.  But  I  must  hope.  Now  leave  me,  please. 
They  might  think  it  strange  we  should  be  alone 
together  for  so  long.  Leave  me.  (She  offers  him 
her  hand)  Good-bye. 

MERYAC  (holding  her  hand  in  his) 

You  don't  object  to  my  coming  here  again? 

RENEE 

No.     That  would  mean  I  was  afraid  of  myself. 

MERYAC 

Good-bye. 

[He  walks  slowly  away,  and  out.  Renee  then  goes 
quickly  to  the  window.  Meryac  is  seen  on  the  terrace 
outside  the  windows  at  the  back.  Renee  watches  him 
for  some  moments,  then  goes  to  the  piano  and,  under 
an  evident  strain,  begins  to  play.  Enter  Olivier. 

OLIVIER 
Is  that  Grieg? 

RENEE 

Yes:  Solveig's  Lied. 


MOTHER  NATURE 


OLIVIER 

Have  you  been  here  all  the  time?    They  were  looking 
for  you  in  the  garden. 

[He  sits  at  his  desk,  takes  up  a  magazine  and  begins 
reading. 

RENEE  (after  a  pause) 
Olivier! 

OLIVIER  (without  looking  up) 
What  is  it? 

RENEE 

Have  they  gone? 

OLIVIER 

They  went  for  a  walk. 
[He  continues  reading. 

RENEE  (going  to  the  desk  and  sitting  down  near  her 
husband) 
Olivier! 

OLIVIER 

What  is  it,  my  dear? 

RENEE 

Don't  read  now. 

OLIVIER 

When  can  I  read?     I  was  constantly  interrupted 
this  morning;  first  your  father  and  mother  — 

RENEE 
Mother? 

OLIVIER 

Yes,  your  mother,  who  was  complaining  to  me  about 
you. 


MOTHER  NATURE  31 

RENEE  (suddenly) 

Don't  you  think  it  more  worth  while  to  talk  about 
me  than  to  read? 

OLIVIER 

I  know  very  well  I  shall  never  be  able  to  convince 
you  that  your  happiness  —  which  is,  after  all,  a 
purely  fictitious  thing  —  depends  entirely  on  your- 
self. You  see,  you  must  learn  to  analyze  a  little, 
and  form  a  conception  of  life  in  general  and  marriage 
in  particular  which  shall  come  a  little  nearer  to  the 
actual  facts.  You  mustn't  give  way  to  the  muddled 
confusions  of  a  raving  romantic.  Are  you  unhappy  ? 
Are  you  sure  that  the  very  fact  of  your  mentioning 
it  does  not  in  advance  constitute  its  refutation? 

RENEE 

Is  that  all  you  have  to  tell  me?  Don't  you  love  me 
any  more? 

OLIVIER 

Of  course  I  do,  of  course.  I  merely  object  to  your 
boarding-school  girl's  notions.  I  don't  want  love 
to  take  the  place  of  reason  and  upset  the  rational 
arrangement  of  our  existence. 

RENEE  (slowly,  as  she  recalls  Meryac's  words) 

The  person  —  who  can  reason  —  isn't  really  in  love. 

OLIVIER  (going  to  her) 

I  do  love  you.  Come,  now  (smiling),  forget  every- 
thing, Renee.  How  beautiful  you  are!  I  love  you 
now,  dear,  I  love  you  deeply.  (He  takes  her  hand, 
then  her  arm)  You're  not  very  reasonable,  but  that  is 
what  makes  you  so  tempting.  And  you  always  get 
what  you  want,  don't  you?  I  do  love  you.  That's 


MOTHER  NATURE 


what  you  want,  isn't  it?  (Renee  allows  herself  to  be 
embraced)  You  are  just  as  I  want  you  to  be.  You 
are  my  own  darling  wife.  Don't  think,  just  love 
me.  You  are  so  lovely ! 

RENEE  (suddenly  tearing  herself  from  him) 

No,  no,  no!  Yes,  I  do  want  to  be  your  wife,  I  wish 
it  with  all  my  heart  and  soul,  but  I  want  to  be  alto- 
gether your  wife  —  or  else  not  at  all.  I  've  suffered 
too  long  from  your  selfish  and  calculating  love. 
I  was  on  the  point  of  giving  in  once  more,  but  I 
saved  myself.  No,  no,  I  refuse  to  be  merely  your 
pleasure.  I  want  to  love  you,  but  not  be  a  passive 
instrument.  Yes,  I  want  to  be  loved,  but  I  want  to 
be  a  woman,  a  whole  woman  —  a  mother!  Other- 
wise —  no,  no,  no !  That  is  too  sickening,  too  dis- 
gusting! Your  selfish  and  cowardly  love  has  no 
beautiful  purpose;  you  forget  the  true  end  of  love, 
that's  beautiful  even  when  you  don't  think  of  it. 
But  never  to  think  of  it,  to  avoid  it,  to  decide  to 
have  no  children,  whose  presence  would  purify  and 
help  us  —  No,  no,  I  can't  and  I  won't. 

OLIVIER 

Really,  this  is  becoming  a  mania  with  you.  I  have 
told  you  — 

RENEE 

You  have  told  me!    And  you  gave  me  cold,  selfish 
and  cowardly  reasons,  and  false  science.     You  were 
afraid. 
OLIVIER 

I  have  already  told  you  that  I  feel  I  have  no  right 
to  impose  upon  another  human  being  the  obligation 


MOTHER  NATURE  33 

to  live  and  to  suffer.  That  right  is  really  not  a 
right  at  all,  and  only  unthinking  people  assume  it. 
I  am  not  one  of  them.  Whenever  I  see  children, 
I  can't  suppress  a  feeling  of  horror  toward  those  who 
dared  bring  them  into  the  world,  and  impose  upon 
them,  as  the  result  of  a  mere  caprice,  the  great  task 
of  life. 

RENEE 

And  when  I  see  children,  I  think  of  their  smiles  and 
laughter. 
OLIVIER 

Pure  selfishness! 

RENEE 

Selfishness!  My  happiness  is  the  happiness  of  mak- 
ing them  glad,  of  giving  up  my  life  for  that  purpose, 
showing  them  the  happiness  and  beauty  of  life, 
preparing  them  for  existence,  and  returning  to  them 
the  joy  and  tenderness  they  give  me.  You  call  the 
love  of  parents  for  their  children  selfishness!  You 
don't  believe  in  it.  You  are  simply  afraid  to  assume 
the  responsibility.  That  is  all  your  reasoning  amounts 
to.  I  want  the  joys  of  a  mother  as  well  as  of  a  wife. 
I  want  to  live  a  whole  life;  no  woman  has  done  that 
unless  she  knows  the  joy  of  motherhood. 

OLIVIER  (going  to  her) 

Come,  now,  Renee,  don't  get  so  excited. 

RENEE  (close  to  him) 

Don't  touch  me!  I  shan't  be  weak  again.  I've 
often  given  in  because  I  loved  you  and  was  carried 
away  at  the  moment.  But  I  tell  you,  in  my  love  for 
you  there  is  also  a  mother's  love.  I  want  to  have 


34  MOTHER  NATURE 

children.  If  your  love  won't  give  them  to  me,  I  don't 
want  your  love! 

OLIVIER 

This  is  ridiculous.  Really,  my  dear,  you  must  be 
out  of  your  senses. 

RENEE 

Take  care,  Olivier,  you  must  protect  me  against  my 
thoughts,  against  my  dreams. 

OLIVIER 
How  do  you  mean? 

RENEE 

By  understanding  them,  and  by  consenting  to  live 
without  so  much  reasoning  and  analysis.  Just  live 
and  be  happy.  (Again,  as  she  remembers  Meryac's 
words,  and  repeating  them)  Without  stopping  to 
consider  right  or  wrong! 

OLIVIER  (taking  up  his  magazine  again) 

Poor  Renee,  you  're  nervous,  that's  what's  the  matter 
with  you.  I  must  work  now.  I  've  begun  a  chapter 
on  Integral  Logic. 

RENEE 

Be  careful,  Olivier! 

OLIVIER 
What  about? 

RENEE 

About  me! 

CURTAIN 


MOTHER  NATURE  35 


ACT  II 

The  scene  is  the  same.  Olivier  is  seated  at  his  desk. 
Klary,  in  a  long  and  ample  gown,  with  a  fillet  round  her 
hair,  stands  leaning  on  the  back  of  a  chair,  in  a  studied  pose. 

KLARY 

Dear  Master,  yes,  I  dream  of  that:  a  Flemish  in- 
terior, dirty  whitewashed  walls,  and  furniture  of 
white  wood.  And  just  a  few  Japanese  vases  here  and 
there.  Human  souls  seem  larger  against  a  simple 
background.  And  to  recite  poetry  there  —  in  a 
murmur,  a  whisper,  so  softly  that  you  can  scarcely 
distinguish  whether  it  be  a  human  voice  that  pro- 
fanes it  or  no  —  ah!  I'd  love  it.  I  was  thinking 
about  it  only  yesterday  as  I  stood  before  a  Primitive 
in  the  gallery.  A  masterpiece! 
OLIVIER 
Of  whom? 

KLARY 

Unknown.  That  made  it  infinitely  more  beautiful. 
Don't  you  feel  somehow  that  a  picture  by  an  Un- 
known is  nobler,  more  mysterious,  more  captivating, 
more  beautiful,  than  one  by  a  well-known  artist? 

OLIVIER 

Neatly  phrased.     May  I  use  it? 

KLARY 

Why  stultify  our  thoughts  by  writing  them  down, 
by  submitting  them  to  such  degrading  labor?  Yes, 
the  so-called  Masters,  with  their  celebrated  works 
so  soiled  by  the  admiration  of  the  mob,  no  longer 


36  MOTHER  NATURE 

possess  for  me  the  magic  of  great  art.     I  must  have 
the  mystery  of  things  whose  story  is  hidden  in  the 
obscure  past,  lost,  or  considered  unimportant.     Their 
very  humility  stirs  me.     Oh,  that  little  Primitive! 
OLIVIER 

Where  is  it? 

KLARY 

Behind  the  door  in  the  large  Van  Eyck  room. 
OLIVIER 

I  know:   a  Virgin;  marble  floor,  little  trees,  a  tower 

in  the  background  — 
KLARY 

That's  it.    What  lovely  marble! 

OLIVIER 

But  that's  a  Snellaert. 

KLARY 

A  Snellaert !    Why  did  you  tell  me  ?     Now  the  mys- 
tery is  gone!    That  was  the  most  beautiful  thing 
about  it.     You  are  too  cruel. 
OLIVIER 

How  is  your  St.  George  progressing? 

KLARY 

I  scraped  it  out. 

OLIVIER 

Why? 

KLARY 

It  was  too  definite,  too  clear.  I  like  only  sketches, 
vague  outlines,  indeterminate  colors,  so  I  scraped  it. 
The  St.  George  began  to  look  like  a  human  being  — 
awfully  commonplace.  I'm  beginning  an  Orpheus, 
but  my  Orpheus  is  without  the  love-motive  — 


MOTHER  NATURE  37 

OLIVIER 

You  are  a  true  artist.  The  man  who  marries  you 
will  be  lucky. 

KLARY 

When  one  devotes  oneself  to  art,  one  never  marries. 
The  artist  ought  to  experience  every  impression, 
and  always  seek  new  ones.  (Looking  at  him)  Now 
you,  for  instance,  are  not  where  you  belong:  your 
existence  is  commonplace  in  the  extreme.  You 
spend  your  life  with  ordinary  people,  because  you  are 
married,  and  faithful  to  your  wife.  All  your  impres- 
sions are  on  a  dead  level. 

OLIVIER 
What  do  you  know  about  it? 

KLARY 

Oh  —  I  am  just  supposing. 

OLIVIER 

I  want  to  prove  how  wrong  you  are. 
[He  goes  to  her  and  kisses  her. 

KLARY  (coldly) 

There's  nothing  so  much  about  a  kiss!  Do  you 
think  so?  Does  Lohengrin  ever  kiss  Elsa? 

OLIVIER  (nonplussed) 
Alas,  I've  not  seen  the  Grail! 

KLARY 
You  should  try  to  behave  as  if  you  had. 

OLIVIER  (solemnly) 

You  are  right.  One  must  detach  himself,  live  a 
spiritual  life,  nourished  by  reflection.  But  I  am 
nearer  that  sort  of  life  than  you  imagine.  You  see, 


38  MOTHER  NATURE 

I  need  help  and  encouragement,  some  one  with  whom 
I  can  commune  and  exchange  ideas,   and  dream 
dreams,  and  tell  of  my  contempt  for  life  — 
\_Enter  the  Maid  with  a  cup  of  bouillon. 

MAID 

Monsieur's  bouillon. 

OLIVIER  (slightly  annoyed} 
What  is  it? 

MAID 

The  bouillon  Monsieur  ordered  for  four  o'clock.     It's 
four  now,  Monsieur. 
OLIVIER 
Very  well. 
\_The  Maid  puts  the  cup  on  a  small  table  and  goes  out. 

KLARY 

Doesn't  your  wife  understand  you? 

OLIVIER 

The  only  things  my  wife  ever  attaches  any  importance 
to  are  the  current  notions  of  sentimentality.  She 
knows  nothing  of  my  aspirations  as  an  artist,  of  my 
dream  of  a  perfect  intellectual  life  inspired  solely 
by  reason  and  ideas,  and  detached  from  all  the 
pettinesses  of  existence  and  the  baser  appetites. 

KLARY 
You  should  never  have  married. 

OLIVIER 

How  was  I  to  know?  I  thought  I  was  planning  my 
life  very  well.  Some  day  I  shall  write  a  book  about 
the  pains  of  existence,  of  the  sufferings  one  must 
undergo  merely  to  live.  It's  so  debasing.  (He 
mechanically  reaches  for  the  bouillon,  which  he  swallows 


MOTHER  NATURE  39 

at  a  gulp)     I  beg  your  pardon.     I  always  take  it  at 
four.    I  'm  a  little  tired  and  overworked. 
KLARY 

I  take  peptone.     I  detest  meals.     Whenever  I  eat, 
I  feel  the  vulgarity  of  material  things  to  my  very 
finger-tips.     I  don't  dare  take  up  a  brush  or  touch 
the  piano. 
{Enter  Darchi. 

DARCHI 

Ah,  little  Lilian!    How  are  you? 

KLARY 

I  'm  alive,  and  therefore  ailing. 

DARCHI 

That's  not  polite  to  us.  Were  you  discussing  art 
with  my  son? 

OLIVIER 

Oh,  yes.  You've  returned  early.  Is  the  concert 
over? 

DARCHI 

No.  I  was  disgusted.  Just  think  —  you'd  never 
guess  —  they  played  Gounod!  I  escaped. 

KLARY 

Do  you  still  care  for  concerts?  I  never  go.  The 
only  music  I  understand  or  like  is  my  own  impro- 
visation. And  then  to  have  to  listen  to  music  in 
company  with  a  whole  mob  of  people!  Perish  the 
thought! 

DARCHI 

You're  rather  severe.  But  we  aren't  a  "whole  mob 
of  people."  I  hope  we  don't  inspire  you  with  the 
same  disgust? 


40  MOTHER  NATURE 

OLIVIER 

I  think  she  is  right. 

DARCHI 

So  do  I,  so  do  I.  That  goes  without  saying.  Sensi- 
tive and  delicate  temperaments  like  ours  suffer 
through  contact  with  the  impressionable  mob  of 
vulgarians.  I'm  disgusted  with  myself  for  going  to 
that  concert.  (To  Klary)  All  the  more  so  as  I 
have  lost  so  much  time  with  you.  It 's  such  a  pleas- 
ure to  find  a  woman  of  your  stamp,  so  intelligent 
and  independent.  You  have  no  silly  prejudices, 
you're  not  romantic  and  sentimental.  You  are 
strange,  fascinating,  novel:  you  are  a  real  product 
of  the  age.  You  belong  almost  to  to-morrow. 

OLIVIER 

You  see,  papa's  in  love  with  you! 
[Enter  Renee  and  Blanche,  left. 

RENEE  (to  Olivier,  as  she  catches  sight  of  Klary) 

I  beg  your  pardon.  I  thought  you  were  alone! 
(Distantly)  Mademoiselle ! 

KLARY  (familiarly) 

How  do 'ye  do,  Madame? 

RENEE 

Very  well,  thank  you. 

OLIVIER  (to  Klary) 

I  should  like  you  to  meet  my  sister,  Madame  Loviat. 
(To  Blanche)  Mademoiselle  Klary  Lilian,  the  painter. 
[Renee  goes  out.  Olivier  is  annoyed. 

BLANCHE 

Ah,  it  was  Mademoiselle  who  exhibited  The  Appa- 
rition? 


MOTHER  NATURE  41 

KLARY  (pleased) 
Yes,  Madame.    Do  you  remember  it? 

BLANCHE 

Yes.  Very  pretty,  though  I  was  never  quite  able  to 
distinguish  what  was  in  the  midst  of  the  iris.  Was 
it  a  man  or  a  woman? 

KLARY  (with  a  disdainful  smile) 
An  apparition,  Madame. 

BLANCHE 

Of  course.  The  color  was  attractive.  Bab  insisted 
it  was  the  Virgin.  (Smiling)  Bab  is  my  eldest  — 
five  years  old.  He  paints,  too  —  water-color  land- 
scapes. They're  very  nice.  But  when  both  children 
start  painting! 

KLARY 
Have  you  two,  Madame? 

DARCHI 

I  am  twice  a  grandfather  —  I  blush  to  admit! 

KLARY  (to  Blanche) 
I'm  sorry  for  you. 

BLANCHE 

You're  sorry  for  me!  Why?  I'm  delighted.  It's 
the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world.  Don't  you 
like  children? 

KLARY 
Very  much:  they're  nice  —  other  people's. 

BLANCHE 

Wouldn't  you  like  to  have  two  some  day? 

KLARY 

I  '11  never  have  any. 


42  MOTHER  NATURE 

BLANCHE 

I  beg  your  pardon,  but  are  you  Mademoiselle  Klary 
Lilian?    Mademoiselle? 
KLARY 

Certainly,  Madame. 

BLANCHE 

Then  let  me  tell  you,  Mademoiselle,  I  think  it's 
rather  terrible  to  be  so  sure! 
OLIVIER 

Now,  Blanche  —  there's  a  misunderstanding.  You 
don't  see! 

BLANCHE 

No,  I  don't  see! 

DARCHl 

Blanche,  you  make  me  blush. 

KLARY 

Dear  Master,  I'll  leave  you.  We'll  continue  our 
study  another  time.  (Bowing)  Madame!  Mon- 
sieur Darchi! 

OLIVIER 
I  am  sorry  —  my  sister  is  rather  abrupt  and  frank  — 

BLANCHE 

Thank  you! 

DARCHI 

Let  me  show  you  the  way,  Mademoiselle. 
[Darchi  goes  out  with  Klary. 

BLANCHE 

Nice  people  you  are  receiving! 
OLIVIER 
She  is  a  very  superior  woman. 


MOTHER  NATURE  43 

BLANCHE 

Superior  to  whom? 

OLIVIER 

To  the  others. 

BLANCHE 

You're  very  amusing. 

OLIVIER 

She  is  an  artist. 

BLANCHE 

I  have  my  doubts. 

OLIVIER  (with  a  shrug) 
Much  you  know  about  it! 

[Reenter  Darchi. 

BLANCHE 

How  do  you  know?  At  all  events,  I  think  a  woman 
artist  ought  to  have  a  fair  share  of  womanliness. 
She  ought  to  have  taste  and  delicacy.  I  don't  see 
very  much  taste  in  that  dirty  eccentric  gown  of  hers, 
that  was  kept  together  with  pins  —  I  saw  them !  — 
and  her  mussy  hair  tied  up  like  the  hair  of  a  Botticelli 
angel.  I  see  nothing  delicate  in  a  young  girl's 
saying  that  she  never  intends  to  have  children. 
That's  not  frankness,  it's  downright  cynicism.  If 
women  artists  can't  remain  women,  I  think  we'd 
much  better  have  ordinary  women  with  grace, 
modesty,  and  simple  loving  qualities  —  like  Renee 
for  instance  —  and  a  fig  for  all  your  temperament 
and  refinement! 

DARCHI 
You're  a  little  fool. 


44  MOTHER  NATURE 

OLIVIER 

You  are  hopelessly  middle-class,  and  naturally  you 
typify  the  middle-class  attitude. 

BLANCHE 

Very  well,  I  do  belong  to  the  middle  class  —  and  so 
do  you,  all  of  you.  But  you  know,  there  is  a  way  of 
being  a  decent  woman,  a  wife  and  mother,  and  an 
artist,  whether  one  is  an  aristocrat,  a  member  of  the 
middle  or  the  lowest  class,  and  that  way  is  to  preserve 
some  of  the  true  womanly  attributes.  An  artist  is 
a  more  sensitive  and  impressionable  being  than  other 
people,  isn't  he?  It  is  his  business  to  interpret  and 
exalt  the  beautiful  feelings.  Now,  a  woman  has  two 
great  feelings  —  beautiful  feelings:  first,  love  in  and 
for  itself,  and  then,  mother's  love.  I  am  madly 
in  love  with  my  husband  and  I  adore  my  two  children. 
Therefore,  I  am  a  truer  artist  than  Mademoiselle 
Lilian;  or,  at  any  rate,  I  am  superior  to  her  because 
I  find  beauty  in  doing  my  duty  and  playing  my 
natural  role. 

OLIVIER 

Good  God,  what  nonsense! 

DARCHI 

Strange  what  broad  ideas  your  brother  and  I  have, 
and  how  narrow  you  are ! 

BLANCHE 

See  here,  papa,  you're  always  trying  to  make  people 
forget  that  you  were  once  a  stove-manufacturer — a 
decent  and  honorable  thing  to  be — but  I  want  to  tell 
you,  you've  become  more  middle-class  than  ever. 
You  pretend  to  tastes  that  you  haven't  got;  you 


MOTHER  NATURE  45 

pose  as  something  you  are  not;  and  you  show  your 
"intellectual"  wares  as  others  display  their  goods. 
Your  brothers  make  a  show  with  the  good  towns- 
people by  piling  up  money;  you  try  to  make  a  show 
in  your  way.  It's  the  same  sort  of  vanity,  and 
it's  a  thing  that's  as  far  from  a  really  superior  man 
as  I  can  imagine.  Now,  don't  be  angry.  You're 
a  good  man  and  I  love  you.  I  can't  say  as  much  for 
Olivier. 

OLIVIER 
As  if  I  cared! 

BLANCHE 

I  know  —  you  don't  care  about  anything.  Oh,  I  Ve 
quite  forgotten  little  Bab  hi  the  garden.  (To 
Darchi)  He  wanted  you.  I  think  you  promised 
to  build  something  for  him  —  Grandpa!  Are  you 
coming? 

DARCHI 

Very  well.  Only  you  are  a  bit  sharp.  You  don't 
understand  — 

[They  go  out.  Olivier  walks  nervously  up  and  down. 
He  stops  in  front  of  his  desk,  lights  a  cigarette,  and 
then  continues  pacing  the  room.  Enter  Renee,  right. 

OLIVIER 

Renee,  your  behavior  just  now  was  inexcusable. 

RENEE 

I  asked  you  not  to  receive  that  woman  any  more. 

OLIVIER 

You  neglected,  however,  to  give  me  any  good  reason 
for  refusing  to  do  so. 


46  MOTHER  NATURE 

RENEE 

I  think  you  have  no  right  to  see  women  here  whom 
I  refuse  to  receive. 

OLIVIER 

Please,  Renee,  let's  not  have  another  useless  argu- 
ment. I  refuse  to  give  up  so  much  good  energy  trying 
to  convince  you  that  you  are  inspired  by  absurd 
prejudices.  I've  suffered  enough  from  them  already. 

RENEE 

As  I  suffered  from  many  other  things.  During  the 
past  month  —  ever  since  our  last  painful  discussion 
on  the  same  subject,  which  I  don't  even  want  to 
remind  you  of  —  I  've  been  trying  to  forget  all  the 
dreams  of  my  girlhood.  Of  course,  I  mustn't  allow 
anything  of  your  outrageous  treatment  toward  me 
to  be  seen  by  any  one. 

OLIVIER 

But  I  can't  emulate  your  way  of  living.  I  must  live 
with  the  people  of  my  own  circle. 

RENEE 

It  seems  to  me  your  circle  ought  to  be  your  family, 
your  own  fireside,  and  —  I  myself. 

OLIVIER 

No :  it  is  the  people  with  whom  I  can  discuss  matters 
that  interest  me,  stimulate  me,  develop  my  intel- 
lectual life. 

RENEE 

That  is,  every  one  except  me. 

OLIVIER 

Is  it  my  fault  if  nothing  I  do  interests  you?  If  you 
persistently  refuse  even  to  try  to  share  my  interests, 


MOTHER  NATURE  47 

to  make  the  slightest  effort  to  rise  above  the  petty 
trivialities  of  the  household? 

RENEE 

Do  you  call  love  and  tenderness  petty  trivialities? 
I  have  tried  to  understand  your  aspirations,  but 
I  Ve  not  found  one  to  take  the  place  of  love. 

OLIVIER 
Real  love  is  a  communion  of  ideas. 

RENEE 

Your  ideas  and  your  words  are  as  cold  as  ice. 

OLIVIER 

As  the  ideas  and  words  of  any  intelligent  and  strong 
man  ought  to  be.  You  see,  the  woman  you  spoke  of, 
and  with  whom  I  enjoy  a  purely  intellectual  relation- 
ship, understands  and  loves  those  ideas  and  words. 
However,  our  last  discussion  only  proved  how  deep 
our  misunderstanding  was,  and  how  impossible  it 
was  to  bridge  the  gap. 

RENEE  (proudly) 

I  shouldn't  think  of  forgetting  that ! 

OLIVIER 

And  as  I  require  the  companionship  of  intellectual 
people  for  the  sake  of  my  own  development,  I  simply 
must  — 

RENEE 

No,  you  must  not,  unless  you  want  to  outrage  every 
feeling  in  me.  I  won't  stand  it.  My  intelligence  — 
I  know  you  don't  think  I  have  any  —  ! 

OLIVIER 
Yes,  I  do,  but  you  were  never  taught  how  to  behave — 


48  MOTHER  NATURE 

RENEE 

I  tell  you,  my  intelligence  and  my  dignity  refuse  to 
bear  it  another  instant. 

[Enter  Heurtoux. 

HEURTOUX 

What  is  it,  Renee?    You're  so  excited! 

RENEE 

It's  you,  father?    I'm  glad  you've  come. 
HEURTOUX 
Why?    What's  the  trouble? 

RENEE 

I  'm  terribly  unhappy. 
HEURTOUX 
Renee ! 

OLIVIER 

Let  her  speak. 

RENEE 

I'm  a  total  stranger  to  my  husband.     He  refuses  to 
allow  me  to  share  his  life  with  him.     He  says  he 
belongs  to  a  different  race,  and  insists  on  receiving 
a  woman  here  whom  I  refuse  to  recognize. 
OLIVIER 

Jealousy,  you  see. 

RENEE 

Jealousy,  no !     I  am  not  jealous,  but  I  won't  be  made 
ridiculous.     It's  my  pride   and  my  dignity.     You 
don't  know  that  side  of  me.     It's  coming  to  the 
surface  now. 
HEURTOUX 

Renee,  please  try  to  be  calm.     Olivier,  she's  right. 
What  about  this  other  woman? 


MOTHER  NATURE  49 

OLIVIER 

A  painter.    I  talk  to  her  about  my  work. 

HEURTOUX 

What  work? 

OLIVIER 

I  can't  explain  it  to  you:  you  don't  understand  — 

HEURTOUX 

Because  I  see  no  evidence  of  your  work.  It's 
very  strange.  You  talk  about  it  to  every  one, 
and  they  waste  your  time,  the  time  you  could  be 
spending  on  doing  it.  You've  been  married  two 
years,  and  you've  never  got  beyond  talking  about 
your  books. 

OLIVIER 

My  dear  Monsieur,  this  is  becoming  absurd.  Kindly 
allow  me  to  do  my  own  work  in  my  own  way.  I  tell 
you  once  for  all,  you  will  never  understand. 

HEURTOUX 

I  've  done  a  good  share  of  work  in  my  day. 

OLIVIER 

Your  idea  of  work  is  a  very  narrow  one.  But  when 
a  man  really  respects  ideas  and  realizes  the  vast 
importance  of  expression,  he  knows  what  infinite 
pains  are  required  to  put  the  ideas  into  definite  shape. 
When  I  think,  I  work,  and  if  the  results  of  that  work 
have  not  as  yet  become  definitely  formulated,  they 
are  none  the  less  gradually  accumulating,  and  will 
some  day  find  a  place  in  a  book  that  will  be  unique 
of  its  kind,  and  worthy  to  be  given  to  the  world, 
Even  dreams  are  preparation  for  the  book.  Granted 


50  MOTHER  NATURE 

that  the  dreams  are  never  used  as  material,  the  good 
work  will  not  have  been  in  vain.  But  you  don't 
see  this,  so  — 

HEURTOUX 

Don't  worry:  I  see.  And  I  understand  it  so  well 
that  in  spite  of  my  inferiority  as  a  human  being 
with  human  emotions,  I  think  it's  all  nonsense. 
When  you  work  for  and  by  yourself,  and  when  you 
dream  —  that's  not  work;  real  work  is  useful  work. 

OLIVIER 
Useful  to  whom? 

HEURTOUX 

To  everybody. 

OLIVIER 

Ah,  real  work  then  is  what  you've  done  all  your  life: 
manufacturing  cloth  and  selling  grain? 

HEURTOUX 

Not  necessarily.  You  must  contribute  something 
useful  for  everybody,  either  materially  —  as  I  have 
done  —  or  add  to  the  beauty  of  the  world  —  as 
you  ought  to  do. 

OLIVIER 

I  don't  believe  in  the  world;  I  don't  even  believe 
in  the  necessity  of  life  —  sufficiently,  that  is,  to  make 
the  effort.  I  didn't  accept  the  duty. 

HEURTOUX 

You've  got  to  accept  it.  And  with  the  duty  goes 
the  right.  Your  right  is  the  right  to  live. 

OLIVIER 
I  didn't  ask  for  it.    I  did  not  give  myself  life. 


MOTHER  NATURE  51 

HEURTOUX 

You  take  very  good  care  to  preserve  it.  You  accept 
the  right  but  refuse  to  perform  the  duty. 

OLIVIER 

You  're  becoming  very  eloquent,  Monsieur  Heurtoux, 
for  a  —  a  — 

HEURTOUX 

Former  manufacturer,  eh?  No,  I'm  not  eloquent, 
I  am  simply  telling  you  a  few  ideas  of  my  own. 
The  average  man  like  me  has  very  decided  notions 
on  the  subject.  You  share  in  the  results  of  other 
people's  labor  —  my  own,  the  baker's,  your  maid's, 
that  of  the  composer  of  the  melody  you  are  now 
whistling — .  You  have  contracted  a  debt.  You 
don't  realize  it,  and  that  is  why  you  are  making 
Renee  unhappy.  You  see,  there  are  certain  duties 
that  go  together;  work,  love,  parenthood;  they  are 
all  contributions  to  life,  and  they  are  natural  duties; 
you  are  bound  to  them  merely  because  you  exist, 
because  you  cling  to  life  — 

OLIVIER 
Who  says  I  cling  to  life? 

HEURTOUX 

Your  very  conduct:  everything  you  do.  Why, 
that  empty  bouillon  cup  on  the  table!  The  life  you 
received  you  must  pay  for.  That  is  why  we  must 
work  for  the  necessities  of  life,  that  is  why  we  are 
endowed  with  instincts  to  love,  and  to  beget  children. 
These  are  like  the  mysterious  laws  of  compensation 
and  equilibrium  in  nature.  Those  who  haven't 
these  instincts  and  who  fail  to  understand  the  duties 
are  natural  monstrosities.  You  smile  — 


52  MOTHER  NATURE 

OLIVIER 

Yes,   a   little.     The   "mysterious   laws"   of  nature 
always  make  me  smile.     I  refuse  to  allow  myself  to 
be  influenced  by  instinct.    I  do  not  submit  to  nature : 
I  analyse  it. 
RENEE 

Stop!  Nature  will  take  her  revenge  on  you.  You 
spend  your  time  dissecting  the  unnatural,  abnormal 
sensations  and  ideas  of  what  you  call  your  circle, 
who  know  nothing  of  nature.  You  shut  yourselves 
into  a  stuffy  little  room  like  this,  where  the  sun  you 
so  much  fear  never  penetrates.  (She  goes  to  the 
window  at  the  back  and  opens  it,  pushing  back  the 
curtains.  The  sunlight  floods  the  room.  Trees  and 
grass,  and  a  lovely  landscape,  are  seen  in  the  distance) 
Can  you  analyse  that?  Can  you  dissect  the  thrilling 
sensations  inspired  by  nature?  No,  you  must  feel 
them  and  be  led  and  dominated  by  them.  You 
must  submit  to  all-powerful  nature,  to  the  great  and 
overmastering  force  of  life.  I  have  my  pride,  as  you 
have  yours.  I  can  understand  your  feeling  of  revolt 
against  everything  that  man  has  made  and  con- 
trived, but  when  you  revolt  against  Mother  Nature, 
your  struggle  must  end  in  failure.  At  base,  I  think 
you  understand  this,  only  you  are  afraid  to  look  facts 
in  the  face;  you  draw  the  curtains!  But  you  are 
playing  a  losing  game.  Nature  comes  to  you  all  the 
same,  and  sooner  or  later  she  will  be  avenged.  So  far 
as  you  are  concerned,  your  day  is  not  far  off. 

OLIVIER 

You,  too,  Renee,  are  waxing  eloquent.  You  don't 
have  to  get  so  excited  to  show  me  the  beauty  of  a 


MOTHER  NATURE  53 

little  landscape  —  a  charming  Corot,  which  I  confess 
I  admire. 
RENEE 

See,  you  can't  admire  nature  except  at  secondhand. 
You  admire  Corots,  Rousseaus,  and  Monets,  but  not 
nature,  because  you  think  of  other  things  when  you 
see  her. 

OLIVIER 

My  dear,  you're  becoming  rather  tiresome.  Have  you 
anything  more  to  say?  Or  you,  Monsieur  Heurtoux? 

HEURTOUX 

No,  I'm  looking  at  the  landscape,  which  your  cur- 
tains were  hiding.  I 'm  looking  at  Bab  in  the  garden; 
Darchi  is  carrying  him  on  his  shoulders  because  he 
doesn't  think  any  one  is  looking.  Yes,  I  do  think 
we  belong  to  different  races,  but  I  wonder  if  the  real 
intellectual,  the  true  artist,  is  you  who  talk  about  the 
"great  forces,"  or  I,  the  old  manufacturer,  upon  whom 
those  forces  are  brought  to  bear,  even  tnough  I  can't 
analyse  them. 

OLIVIER 

No,  we  are  not  the  same,  and  therefore  we  can  never 
understand  each  other.  Now  let  us  bring  this  dis- 
cussion to  a  close.  My  education  and  culture  have 
opened  up  too  wide  a  gulf  between  us. 

RENEE 

I  have  not  finished  yet.  I  want  to  ask  you  a  simple 
question,  and  I  beg  you  to  think  well  before  you 
answer.  A  great  deal  will  depend  on  that  answer, 
more  than  you  imagine.  Are  you  willing  to  refuse 
to  receive  that  woman  any  more? 


54  MOTHER  NATURE 

OLIVIER 

My  dear,  I  see  no  reason  why  I  should  give  in  to  your 
whim. 

RENEE 
Very  well. 

OLIVIER  (going  to  the  door) 

Good-bye,  Monsieur  Heurtoux.  We'll  meet  again 
when  you  calm  down  a  little,  and  perhaps  you 
aren't  so  much  inclined  to  philosophize. 

{Olivier  goes  out.    Renee  falls  into  a  chair. 

RENEE 

I  —  I  want  fresh  air.  Please  open  the  windows. 
(Heurtoux  opens  the  windows  wide.  The  sun  is  setting. 
The  stage  is  gradually  becoming  darker)  Now  it's  all 
over! 

HEURTOUX 

What  do  you  mean? 

RENEE 

I  mean,  I  feel  I  am  absolutely  free  now. 

HEURTOUX 

But,  Renee,  you  are  a  married  woman!  — 

RENEE 

Marriage  has  made  me  unhappy.  It  disgusts  me, 
and  I  '11  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  it. 

HEURTOUX 
Renee ! 

RENEE  (rising) 

Father,  you  don't  know  what  I  have  gone  through. 
You  don't  know  what  our  marriage  has  been! 


MOTHER  NATURE  55 

HEURTOUX 

Yes,  I  do  know.  Your  mother  told  me.  (Renee 
hides  her  face.  Heurtoux  goes  to  her)  Poor  child! 
I  like  you  better  that  way  —  ashamed,  even  before 
your  father.  I  like  to  see  a  woman  blush  for  some 
things.  Poor  dear  child,  I  know  how  unhappy 
you  are.  Perhaps  it's  my  fault  for  allowing  you 
to  marry  him. 

RENEE 
You  mustn't  blame  yourself,  father. 

HEURTOUX 

But  I  do.  I  am  sorry  for  my  short-sightedness. 
How  many  fathers  there  are  like  me  who  have  lived 
decent  lives  as  husbands  and  fathers,  and  yet  seem 
to  think  a  husband  for  then*  daughter  must  be  dif- 
ferent from  what  they  are!  They  are  taken  in  by 
the  fine  manners  of  a  gentleman.  Poor  Renee,  I 
ought  to  have  found  you  a  husband  like  myself  — 
(with  a  smile)  or  as  I  used  to  be.  Nothing  very  bril- 
liant, but  a  good  solid  fellow,  not  over-subtle,  but  full 
of  the  love  of  life,  with  good  strength  and  courage;  a 
man  of  strong  convictions,  relying  maybe  a  little  too 
much  on  his  emotions,  but  finding  in  them,  because 
they  are  healthy,  the  pledge  for  a  well-balanced 
and  common-sense  existence.  You  want  a  man  nearer 
to  nature,  not  so  refined,  but  healthier  and  gentler, 
who  loves  you  with  less  philosophy  and  more  passion 
—  the  way  I  loved  your  mother  —  (Renee  rises  as  she 
listens  to  her  father,  and  looks  out  the  window)  and 
gives  you  children,  fine  healthy  youngsters,  like  Bab. 
Aren't  you  listening,  Renee? 


56  MOTHER  NATURE 

RENEE 

Yes,  yes,  father,  but  I  was  looking.  See,  outdoors 
everything  is  echoing  your  words:  the  breeze,  the 
rustling  of  the  leaves,  Bab's  voice  — 

HEURTOUX 
So  you  see,  Renee,  I  am  right  hi  blaming  myself. 

[Enter  Darchi,  at  the  back. 

DARCHI 

The  window  open !     What  are  you  doing? 

RENEE 

We  were  talking.     Isn't  Bab  with  you? 

DARCHI 

Meryac  relieved  me.  The  moment  he  appears  on 
the  scene,  Bab  forgets  every  one  else.  (To  Heurtoux) 
You  old  emotional  and  impressionable  Daddy,  will 
you  play  a  game  of  billiards  with  me?  Olivier's 
not  here :  he's  gone  for  a  walk. 

RENEE 
Oh! 

DARCHI 

Yes.     (To  Heurtoux)     Are  you  coming? 

HEURTOUX 

Yes,  and  I  want  to  talk  to  you  about  something. 

DARCHI 

You're  going  to  lecture  me,  are  you?  If  so,  I'll  run 
away. 

HEURTOUX 

See  you  soon,  Renee.    Kiss  me. 

[Renee  offers  her  forehead,  and  Heurtoux  kisses  it. 


MOTHER  NATURE  57 

DARCHI 

Very  touching  family  scene! 

[Heurtoux  and  Darchi  go  out.  The  stage  has  become 
quite  dark.  Renee  goes  slowly  to  the  window,  sits 
down,  and  gazes  out.  Andre  and  Blanche  enter  a 
moment  later. 

BLANCHE 

What  do  you  want? 

ANDRE 

I  want  you  to  kiss  me. 
[He  kisses  her  face  and  neck. 

BLANCHE 

What  is  the  matter?    The  idea! 
ANDRE  (kissing  her  again) 

This  is  my  answer  to  your  father's  statement  that  no 
love  can  survive  five  years'  married  life.  I  can't 
discuss,  and  my  lips  refuse  to  argue  —  except  this 
way. 

BLANCHE 

I  think  they're  most  eloquent! 

ANDRE 

Do  you? 
BLANCHE  (offering  her  lips) 

You  see  ?     I  want  more  —  arguments.     (Andre  kisses 

her  again)     Then  you  still  love  me? 
ANDRE 

Dear  little  Blanchette! 

BLANCHE 

Very  much? 

ANDRE 

Very  much. 


58  MOTHER  NATURE 

BLANCHE 

As  much  as  at  first? 

ANDRE 

More. 

BLANCHE 

But  you  said  then  it  was  impossible  to  love  me  more  ? 

ANDRE 

I  thought  so  at  the  time,  but  I  didn't  imagine  you 
could  become  more  adorable  than  you  were  then. 
I  was  mistaken.  I  know  you  so  much  better  now. 

BLANCHE 

You  do  indeed! 

ANDRE  (with  his  arm  around  her  waist) 
And  you  are  my  own  wife  — 

BLANCHE 

Of  course  I  am,  you  dear! 

ANDRE 

And  yet  I  can  never  know  you  too  well.  I  love  you, 
I  love  you  so  much  — 

BLANCHE 

Stop!    You   mustn't   profane   my   brother's   office, 
the  psychologist's  sanctuary.     Aren't  you  glad  you 
aren't  like  him?     If  I  had  that  kind  of  a  husband, 
I  'd  have  deceived  him  long  ago. 
ANDRE 

Now  I'm  warned.  But  I  don't  want  to  be  like  him, 
so  there's  no  danger. 

BLANCHE 

Then  we're  not  old  married  people? 

ANDRE 

Do  you  think  we  are? 


MOTHER  NATURE  59 

BLANCHE 

And  we're  not  going  to  be? 

ANDRE 

Never  —  even  at  eighty.     We'll  always  be  bride  and 
groom.    Let  me  kiss  you  again.    (Renee  rises.    They 
turn)     Sh!    There's  some  one!    Let's  run! 
[They  escape,  without  having  seen  Renee. 

RENEE 

How  happy  they  are ! 

[She  leans  against  the  watt  near  the  door.     Singing 
is   heard   outside.    Meryac's  figure   is   distinguished 
passing  on  the  terrace.     On  catching  sight  of  Renee, 
he  stops  short,  then  enters. 
MERYAC 

Are  you  alone? 

RENEE 

I  was  watching  the  sun  set. 

MERYAC 

And  I  have  been  looking  for  you.     Your  husband 
has  gone  out.     Your  father  and  father-in-law  are 
talking  on  the  road.     Andre  and  his  wife  have  dis- 
appeared somewhere,  and  your  mother  is  with  Bab. — 
I  haven't  seen  you  for  some  days.     Are  you  trying 
to  avoid  me? 
RENEE 
No. 

MERYAC 

I  wanted  so  much  to  see  you! 

RENEE 

But  you  're  so  busy.     Your  factory,  your  minting  — 
Weren't  you  out  hunting  this  gorgeous  day? 


60  MOTHER  NATURE 

MERYAC 

No.     I  don't  think  I'll  do  any  more  hunting  at  all. 

RENEE  (seated,  as  she  looks  off  into  the  distance) 
Why  not? 

MERYAC 

I  feel  sick  about  it,  almost  remorseful.  Something 
happened  —  it  was  really  of  no  consequence  —  a 
hunter  would  laugh  at  me. 

RENEE 

What  was  it? 

MERYAC 

Nothing,  and  yet  it  upset  me,  and  brought  tears  to 
my  eyes.  It  was  three  days  ago.  You  remember 
how  beautiful  it  was,  how  the  sun  bathed  the  whole 
countryside  —  as  it  does  to-day.  Well,  I  started 
off  with  my  dog.  I  was  entranced  with  the  soft 
summer  air  and  intoxicated  with  the  bright  sunlight. 
I  walked  along  oblivious  of  everything,  in  a  dream  — 
the  one  I  always  dream,  and  which  I  dare  not  tell 
you  —  I  had  forgotten  all  about  hunting  and  lost 
sight  of  the  dog.  All  at  once  I  heard  something 
run  through  the  underbrush.  I  looked  up,  and 
twenty  paces  away  I  saw  the  dog  madly  pursuing 
a  little  gray  mass.  I  don't  know  why  I  didn't  raise 
my  gun  as  I  usually  do,  but  somehow  I  was  frightened 
and  stunned.  I  called  to  the  dog:  "Frac!  Frac, 
come  here!"  But  the  dog  was  too  intent  on  his 
prey,  and  when  I  finally  reached  him,  after  a  hot 
chase,  he  had  already  mangled  the  little  gray  mass. 
It  was  a  young  hare.  I  watched  its  last  agony,  and 
felt  as  if  I  were  an  accomplice  to  a  murder.  Strange, 


MOTHER  NATURE  61 

it  wasn't  the  first  time  I'd  seen  an  animal  die;  often 
I  finished  the  work  myself.  I  have  always  been  so 
excited  by  the  shooting  that  I  never  thought  of  the 
animal  itself.  But  this  time  I  felt  the  whole  death 
agony  as  I  saw  the  helpless  little  body  palpitate 
in  the  clover.  Everything  danced  before  my  eyes; 
I  thought  that  all  nature  was  trembling  at  the 
death  of  the  little  hare.  You  see,  there's  nothing 
extraordinary  in  this  stupid  little  tale.  But  I  don't 
think  I'll  hunt  again.  I  don't  think  I'd  dare  look 
another  living  creature  in  the  face.  You  have  made 
me  feel  that  way. 
RENEE 

i? 

MERYAC 

Yes,  you.  Ever  since  I  saw  you  and  loved  you,  I 
have  felt  a  greater  responsibility  toward  all  life  and 
a  love  for  all  creatures.  When  I  think  of  you  —  and 
I  always  think  of  you!  —  all  nature  surges  up  in  me, 
the  whole  of  life.  It  intoxicates  me. 

RENEE 

I  have  felt  that,  too!  I  know  the  feeling.  When  I 
was  a  child,  and  when  I  was  still  a  young  girl,  I  used 
to  have  hallucinations  —  they  were  wonderfully 
beautiful  —  and  I  seemed  to  see  the  great  hosts  of 
life;  they  meant  power  and  mystery  to  me.  When 
you  came  here  a  few  minutes  ago,  I  felt  so  confused  — 
and  troubled  — 

MERYAC  * 

Troubled?    Have  you  been  suffering  again? 

RENEE 

No. 


62  MOTHER  NATURE 

MERYAC 

Yes,  you  have.  I  can't  bear  to  have  you  suffer. 
It's  all  the  more  intolerable  in  the  presence  of  the 
supreme  happiness  of  nature,  that  seems  to  cry 
aloud  to  us  to  thrill  and  be  our  true  selves.  You  are 
so  full  of  life,  of  passion,  youth. 
[The  sound  of  women's  voices  singing  is  heard  more 
distinctly  than  before. 

RENEE 

It  is  wonderful!  This  beautiful  evening!  You  and 
I  can't  be  reasonable  now.  Let  us  go. 

MERYAC 

Are  you  afraid? 

RENEE  (tense) 

Yes.  And  I  do  suffer.  You  are  right:  I  am  young, 
I  love  life.  I  feel  those  things  you  spoke  of.  Every- 
thing draws  us  together;  the  birds'  wings,  the  singing, 
the  laughing  children.  I  understand  the  mysterious 
language  of  nature,  but  I  am  afraid  of  what  it  will 
tell  me.  I  am  afraid  of  myself.  I'm  so  lonely! 
And  I  am  afraid  of  you !  Let's  go,  let's  go ! 

MERYAC  (close  by  her) 

Renee,  you  mustn't  be  afraid.  You  give  me  joy  and 
confidence.  Remember,  you  have  the  right  to  love, 
to  give  yourself  freely.  Nature  calls  you!  Listen 
to  the  singing  and  the  children !  I  love  you,  Renee, 
I  love  you! 
[He  takes  her  in  his  arms. 

RENEE  (freeing  herself  from  his  embrace) 

No,  dear,  no.  Please !  Pity  me !  I  feel  so  weak  — 
I —  !  I'm  not  keeping  anything  from  you,  and  I 
tell  you  I'm  deeply  troubled,  because  my  pride  has 


MOTHER  NATURE  63 

been  hurt:  I  feel  my  will-power  deserting  me. 
Aren't  you  satisfied?  You  have  felt  my  heart  beat, 
and  you  have  brought  me  to  the  verge  of  giving 
myself  to  you.  I  love  you.  You  knew  it  already  — 
I  don't  mind  admitting  it.  But  I  beg  you,  because 
I  love  you  and  because  I  want  us  to  be  worthy  of 
each  other,  please  go  —  leave  me  — 

MERYAC 

Renee,  you  told  me  you  understood  the  language  of 
nature!  Isn't  nature  giving  us  to  each  other  now? 

RENEE 

I  do  understand  it  — 

MERYAC 

Not  as  I  do.    I  must  have  you  —  I  want  you! 

RENEE 

And  I  want  you,  but  more  still,  I  want  to  resist. 
I  implore  you,  save  me  from  myself.  Yes,  I  too  feel 
drawn  to  you,  irresistibly.  I  am  young,  I  have  been 
sad  and  lonely,  and  I  want  to  live  —  I  must  live. 
And  I  love  you  —  oh,  so  much!  Ever  since  you 
first  told  me  you  loved  me,  I  've  been  struggling  hard 
with  myself.  I  know  it's  no  use  now.  I  will  be  yours, 
I  must  be  yours,  because  I  love  you,  and  I  want  to 
love  you.  But  I  don't  want  to  do  anything  I  should 
regret.  Not  here.  I  don't  want  my  happiness  to 
spring  from  defeat.  I  want  it  to  be  victory!  Later 
—  to-morrow,  perhaps  —  then  without  regret,  with- 
out remorse!  Not  to-day.  Pity  me.  I  love  you, 
I  am  yours  —  but  not  —  now.  Not  now. 
[She  turns  from  him  in  tears.  The  singing  outside 
is  heard  coming  nearer  and  nearer. 

CURTAIN 


64  MOTHER  NATURE 


ACT  III 

The  scene  is  the  same.    Heurtoux,  Mme.  Heurtoux, 
and  Darchi  are  present. 

DABCHI 

But  it's  not  my  fault.    Anyway,  I  am  sure  you 

exaggerate. 
HEURTOUX 

Of  course,  it's  not  your  fault,  my  dear  Darchi.     But 

it's  high  time  you  began  to  look  facts  in  the  face. 

I  tell  you,  we  are  not  exaggerating. 

MME.   HEURTOUX 

Unfortunately!  If  Renee  doesn't  seem  more  des- 
perate, it's  her  pride.  She  sees  you  agree  with  Oli- 
vier in  everything,  and  she  refuses  to  show  anything. 
But  she  is  suffering.  She  can't  stand  the  strain 
very  much  longer.  I'm  afraid  it  will  tell  on  her. 

HEURTOUX 

That's  what  I  said.  That  scene  about  little  Lilian 
the  other  day  was  a  fearful  shock.  It  showed  how 
serious  the  matter  is  becoming.  I  don't  see  any  way 
out  of  it.  Renee's  excitement  worried  me  as  much 
as  Olivier's  indifference. 

DARCHI 

What  do  you  want  me  to  do?  I'm  not  used  to 
handling  these  sentimental  affairs.  But  why  the 
devil  does  Renee  make  such  a  fuss  over  Klary?  The 
little  girl  is  amusing  —  that's  all. 

HEURTOUX 
Too  amusing! 


MOTHER  NATURE  65 

DAKCHI 

Grant  even  that  Olivier  is  wrong.  Grant  it.  What 
else  has  Renee  to  complain  of?  These  griefs  of  hers 
are  rather  vague,  it  seems  to  me,  a  matter  of  impres- 
sions — 

MME.    HEURTOUX 

My  dear  friend,  a  woman's  whole  happiness  is  a 
matter  of  impressions.  Probably  the  greatest  lack 
in  Renee's  married  life  is  impressions.  You  can't 
leave  a  young  wife  of  twenty-five  in  the  sort  of  moral 
desert  in  which  Olivier  leaves  Renee.  Renee  is  by 
nature  lively,  affectionate,  tender.  He  maintains 
he  must  have  quiet  for  his  intellectual  development  — 
much  good  it  does  him  —  and  he  says  she  disturbs 
him.  He  neglects  her,  that's  what  he  does,  and  re- 
fuses her  everything  she  has  a  right  to  expect.  You 
think  her  griefs  are  vague,  and  that  she  has  nothing 
in  particular  to  complain  of.  I  tell  you,  she  is  right 
when  she  declares  she  is  not  getting  out  of  marriage 
what  she  had  a  perfect  right  to  expect.  She's  not 
a  real  wife  in  any  sense  of  the  word:  she  can't  hope 
to  be  a  mother. 

DARCHI 

Ridiculous  sentimental  feminine  notions!  A  man 
and  his  wife  can't  always  love  as  they  did  when  they 
were  engaged! 

MME.   HEURTOUX 

Good  Heavens,  my  dear  Darchi,  you  surely  don't 
expect  me,  an  old  woman,  to  tell  you  how  a  husband 
ought  to  love  his  wife;  how  he  can  go  about  it  to 
make  her  forget  certain  disagreeable  things  and  be 


66  MOTHER  NATURE 

happy!  I  was  once  a  young  wife  myself,  and  I  can 
tell  you  our  married  life  wasn't  a  bit  like  Renee's 
and  Olivier 's.  (To  her  husband)  Isn't  that  so, 
dear?  (Heurtoux  makes  no  answer,  only  he  lightly 
kisses  her  hair)  And  I  rather  think  your  own  wasn't 
either,  for  that  matter! 

DARCHI 
We  belong  to  another  generation. 

HEURTOUX 

There  are  some  things  that  never  change  from  one 
generation  to  another,  old  man.  Men  and  women 
love  each  other  nowadays  as  they  did  in  the  past  — 
that  is,  when  they  really  love. 

MME.    HEURTOUX 

I  knew  your  wife,  Darchi,  and  I  know  she  was  very 
happy  —  don't  deny  it!    And  I  know,  too,  that  you 
let  her  have  the  upper  hand  with  you. 
DARCHI 
Come,  now,  I  — 

MME.    HEURTOUX 

Yes,  yes,  yes.     You  were  very  much  in  love  with  her. 
And  you  had  children. 
DARCHI 

Who've  given  me  any  amount  of  trouble. 

MME.   HEURTOUX 

Whom  you  love  all  the  same,  and  who  have  given 
you  great  happiness.  Why,  your  behavior  at  this 
very  moment  is  only  the  result  of  your  admiration 
for  Olivier.  And  look  at  Blanche,  who  has  given 
you  grandchildren,  to  whom  you  are  a  model  grand- 
daddy  —  when  no  one  is  looking! 


MOTHER  NATURE  67 

DARCHI 

I  haven't  a  heart  of  stone,  of  course  — 

MME.   HEURTOUX 

Then  try  to  appear  what  you  really  are.     You  have 
good,  simple,  healthy  feelings  which  you  try  your 
best  to  conceal  and  stifle,  in  order  to  ape  your  son. 
It  reminds  me  of  the  way  you  hide  your  comfortable 
old  Voltaire  armchair  in  your  bedroom,  while  you 
pretend  to  like  those  nasty  little  English  things  you 
can't  sit  down  on! 
DARCHI 
Who  told  you  that? 

MME.    HEURTOUX 

Blanche.  You  see,  we  know  you.  There's  no  use 
trying  to  make  us  believe  you  are  an  advanced  mod- 
ern, that  you've  done  away  with  all  human  feelings, 
and  so  on.  We  won't  believe  you. 

HEURTOUX 

You  understand,  Darchi,  this  is  a  very  serious 
matter.  Our  girl  is  threatened  with  great  unhap- 
piness.  And  it's  high  time  you  did  something. 

DARCHI  (nervously) 
I? 

HEURTOUX 

Yes,  you.     You  are  the  only  one  who  can  say  certain 
things  to  Olivier.     We  couldn't.     I  tried  yesterday, 
but  it  was  useless.     You  could  say  things  to  him 
without  hurting  his  pride. 
DARCHI 

I?  My  dear  friends,  I  don't  think  so.  I  really 
am  in  earnest  —  I  haven't  been  so  serious  for  a  long 


68  MOTHER  NATURE 

time.  What  you  tell  me  about  Renee  troubles  me, 
I  confess.  I  know  I  deserve  a  severe  scolding. 
It's  partly  my  own  fault. 

MME.   HEURTOUX 

No  one  is  blaming  you. 

DARCHI 

I  think  I  ought  to  blame  myself.  You  have  changed 
me.  I  haven't  really  thought  about  myself  for  years. 
But  how  could  it  be  helped?  I  had  such  confidence 
in  Olivier's  intellect.  I  couldn't  foresee  all  this 
trouble. 
HEURTOUX 

But  if  you  step  in  now  — 

DARCHI 

Believe  me,  I  want  to  help.  But  I'm  sure  Olivier 
wouldn't  listen  to  me.  You  see,  he's  so  used  to 
having  me  agree  with  him  in  everything.  He  knows 
so  much  more  than  I  do,  and  he  argues  better. 
I've  become  the  obedient  son,  and  he  the  father. 
Why,  he'd  laugh  in  my  face  —  respectfully  of  course! 
Still,  he'd  laugh.  And  he'd  say  all  sorts  of  fine- 
sounding  things,  and  I'd  understand  about  half 
of  them.  Of  course,  my  answers  would  be  ridicu- 
lous. And  besides,  I'm  afraid  he  would  use  my 
own  arguments  against  me. 
HEURTOUX 

You  are  in  a  bad  way,  Darchi! 

DARCHI 

It's  not  easy  being  the  father  of  a  superior  man! 
I'm  nothing  but  a  retired  manufacturer.  How  can 
I  answer  clever  arguments?  How  can  I  confess  my 


MOTHER  NATURE  69 

ignorance?  It  would  be  too  humiliating.  I'd  hare 
to  pretend  to  be  superior  in  my  own  way.  That's 
the  simplest  method,  but  it  has  its  drawbacks.  I 
feel  that  mote  keenly  now  than  ever  before.  It 
hurts  me  to  have  to  confess  this  to  you.  I  can't 
help  you  at  all. 

HEURTOUX 
Well,  try,  at  least. 

DARCHI 

I'll  try,  but  I  haven't  much  hope.  I'll  see  him  at 
once.  (He  goes  toward  Heurtoux)  You  don't  blame 
me,  do  you,  Heurtoux? 

HEURTOUX  (grasping  his  hand) 

Of  course  not.  I  feel  sorry  for  you,  as  I  do  for  our- 
selves. 

DARCHI  (as  he  goes  out) 
I'll  try. 

MME.    HEURTOUX 

Poor  fellow! 

HEURTOUX 

He's  beginning  to  see  the  light. 

MME.   HEURTOUX 

He  at  least  has  Blanche.     While  we  —  I'm  so  afraid 
for  Renee! 
HEURTOUX 

Darchi  is  not  the  only  one  who  blames  himself. 

MME.    HEURTOUX 

What  do  you  mean  ? 

HEURTOUX 

I  mean  I  blame  myself,  too,  for  what  has  happened. 
It's  somewhat  my  own  fault. 


70  MOTHER  NATURE 

MME.    HEURTOUX 

How  do  you  mean,  your  own  fault? 

HEURTOUX 

I  ought  to  have  known  better  than  to  give  her  such  a 
husband  —  he  was  too  different.  That's  the  usual 
mistake  of  fathers  like  me.  If  we  have  no  money 
to  give  our  daughters,  we  many  them  off  to  rich 
men,  deceiving  them  meanwhile  as  to  the  state  of  our 
finances.  If  we  have,  then  we  look  for  a  son-in-law 
from  the  upper  classes,  and  we  find  out  when  it's 
too  late  that  sincerity  and  hard  work  are  the  only 
roads  to  intelligence  and  virtue.  The  girl  is  made 
unhappy,  and  we  are  punished  for  our  stupidity  and 
pride.  The  punishment  may  be  a  cruel  one,  but  it 
is  none  the  less  deserved. 

MME.    HEURTOUX 

You're  right.  We  were  mistaken.  And  yet  you  and 
I,  dear,  knew  how  to  be  happy,  and  we  loved  each 
other.  We  were  happy,  I  think,  because  we  never 
tried  to  find  out  the  why  and  how  of  it  all.  Hap- 
piness comes  when  you  don't  think  too  much  about  it. 
I  only  hope  Renee  won't  do  anything  rash.  I'm 
so  afraid  — 

HEURTOUX 

But  Renee  has  a  very  strict  sense  of  duty. 

MME.    HEURTOUX 

Still,  I'm  afraid.  I  know  her.  The  way  she  keeps 
things  to  herself  —  why,  the  strain  must  be  terrible. 
Her  strength  and  patience  must  be  nearly  at  an  end. 
And  she  is  young  and  romantic,  you  know.  She  is 
honest  and  upright,  of  course,  but  she  belongs  to 


MOTHER  NATURE  71 

her  own  generation,  and  if  she  knows  her  duties, 
she  also  knows  her  rights.  I'm  very  much  worried. 
When  I  saw  her  a  few  moments  ago  she  was  almost 
too  calm!  Especially  after  the  scene  yesterday. 

[Enter  Renee. 

RENEE 

Have  you  seen  Blanche,  mother? 

MME.    HEURTOUX 

Not  long  ago.     She  must  be  somewhere  in  the  house. 
Come  here,  Renee,  we  want  to  talk  with  you. 
RENEE 

What  is  it,  mother? 

MME.    HEURTOUX 

We  want  to  know  what's  the  matter.     You  are  so 
changed.     Have  you  had  an  explanation  with  your 
husband?    Is  everything  better  now? 
RENEE 

No,  we've  had  no  explanation.  There  will  be  no 
more  explanations,  unless  — 

MME.    HEURTOUX 

What  is  the  matter,  dear?  Look  at  me  —  straight 
in  the  face.  (Renee  looks  steadfastly  at  her  mother) 
You're  so  changed  since  yesterday.  It  almost 
seems  as  if  your  trouble  had  been  wiped  away. 
There  is  a  look  of  joy,  of  victory,  in  your  eyes  — 
RENEE 

I'm  just  calm,  mother,  that's  all.  And  I  have  per- 
fect control  over  my  feelings.  I  'm  not  worrying  any 
more.  I've  made  an  important  decision.  I  see 
everything  clearly  now.  I've  found  my  will-power 
again. 


72  MOTHER  NATURE 

MME.   HEURTOUX 

A  decision?     What? 

RENEE 

Mother,  please  don't  make  me  tell  you  now.  You 
will  know  soon. 

MME.    HEURTOUX 

What  is  it  ?  Renee,  are  you  hiding  anything  from  me  ? 
From  your  father  and  mother?  That's  not  right. 

RENEE 

Yes,  it  is.  You  see,  I'm  afraid  you'll  both  object. 
You  made  me  a  decent  girl,  and  you've  given  me 
feelings.  You  yourselves  have  given  me  the  example, 
only  your  notions  of  decency  and  uprightness  are  a 
little  different  from  mine;  they  belong  to  different 
times.  I  do  respect  you,  and  I  admire  your  principles, 
but  I  think  I  have  the  right  not  to  agree  with  you 
on  certain  matters.  I  imagine  you  wouldn't  approve 
of  what  I  have  decided  to  do.  But  nothing  can 
prevent  me  — 

HEURTOUX 
Not  even  your  father  and  mother,  Renee? 

RENEE 

No,  not  even  you.  I  love  you  both  dearly,  and  I 
should  feel  terribly  hurt  if  I  did  something  you 
disapproved  of,  but  I  feel  that  this  is  a  matter  con- 
cerning my  whole  future  happiness.  I  shall  soon 
be  very  happy,  and  so  will  you. 

MME.   HEURTOUX 

Don't  you  see  how  your  attitude,  your  silence  and 
calmness,  have  hurt  us  already?  If  you  behave  this 
way,  it  must  be  a  very  serious  matter.  Your  decision 


MOTHER  NATURE  73 

must  be  irrevocable?    You  —  you  aren't  forgetting 
your  duties,  are  you,  Renee? 
RENEE 
What  duties? 

MME.   HEURTOUX 

As  a  wife,  my  child.  ^ 

RENEE 

As  a  wife?  I  am  not  a  wife,  as  you  know  only  too 
well. 

HEURTOUX 

Your  duties  as  a  woman,  then. 

RENEE 

I  am  not  even  a  woman!     At  least,  so  far  I  haven't 
lived  the  life  of  a  real  woman.     What  I  want  now  is 
the  duties  of  a  woman! 
HEURTOUX 

What  are  you  going  to  do,  Renee?  See  how  upset 
your  mother  is.  She  is  afraid  for  you,  and  for  us. 
Tell  us  what  you've  decided  to  do.  We'll  try  to 
understand  and  help  you,  if  we  possibly  can. 

RENEE 

Forgive  me,  father  —  and  you  too,  mother.     I'm 
going  to  hurt  you,  I  know,  but  I  can't  help  it;   it's 
inevitable,    and   it's   absolutely   necessary.     That's 
the  only  sorrow  I  have  in  all  my  happiness.     But  I 
must  tell  you  —  if  not  to-day,  then  to-morrow. 
MME.  HEURTOUX  (crying) 
Renee! 

RENEE 

I  only  want  you  to  understand,  and  not  blame  me. 
You  spoke  of  my  duties  as  a  woman.  My  duty  as 


MOTHER  NATURE 


a  woman  is  to  give  all  my  love  and  be  faithful  to  the 
man  who  loves  me.  Olivier  does  not  love  me. 

HEURTOUX 

He  is  your  husband! 

RENEE 

Do  you  insist  that  I  sacrifice  my  whole  life  for 
that  reason?  For  the  sake  of  a  convention?  Would 
you  ask  me  to  drag  out  my  life  to  the  end,  with- 
out hope?  You  can't  ask  me  to  do  that!  You 
wouldn't  want  me  to!  To  live  alone  without  love, 
me  a  woman  of  twenty-five  — 

MME.    HEURTOUX 

You  are  cruel,  Renee.  You  say  you  would  be  alone. 
What  about  us? 

RENEE 

You  know  I  love  you,  mother.  I  respect  you, 
and  I  adore  you.  I  want  to  be  like  you,  when  I 
am  your  age.  I  want  to  look  back  on  my  life  and 
think  of  it  with  pride,  and  know  I  have  deserved  my 
happiness.  What  I  admire  and  love  in  you  is  what 
your  life  has  been  —  how  quiet  and  strong !  —  your 
sense  of  duty  accomplished.  I  know  what  you 
have  been  when  I  see  father  kiss  your  white  hair, 
and  when  I  think  that  I  am  part  of  your  love  for 
each  other.  That  is  why  I  want  to  be  like  you,  to 
the  end  of  my  life. 

MME.   HEURTOUX 

My  dear  child,  what  are  you  going  to  do?  It's  a 
terrible  thing  that  you  can't  realize  your  dreams, 
unless  you  do  wrong  by  leaving  your  husband  and 
going  to  some  one  else  — 


MOTHER  NATURE  75 

RENEE 

That's  what  I  want! 

HEUBTOUX 

And  forget  us! 

RENEE 

I  shan't  forget  you.  I  know  that  you  suffer  as  I 
do  —  more,  perhaps.  I  want  a  different  life  from 
now  on.  But  I  promise,  you  will  find  happiness  in 
my  happiness.  I  make  you  cry  now,  but  soon  I 
shall  make  you  laugh  with  me.  You  will  be  happy, 
as  you  were  when  I  was  a  child.  That  is  the  only 
real  joy  parents  have  —  children  —  but  think  how 
wonderful  it  is!  I  want  that  joy  too,  mother! 
You  must  promise  to  stand  by  me,  and  take  care  of 
me.  Promise;  I  need  your  support. 

MME.  HEURTOUX  (in  tears) 

Poor  darling!  Do  you  think  we'd  give  you  up? 
What  would  our  life  be  without  you  now? 

RENEE 

What  mine  would  be  twenty  years  from  now,  if  I 
failed  to  do  what  I  have  decided  to! 

HEURTOUX 

But  tell  us  — 

[Enter  Olivier. 

RENEE  (with  dignity  and  strength) 
Now  I  '11  tell  you,  mother !    I  have  asked  my  husband 
to  be  present  and  hear  my  decision. 

OLIVIER 

Good  setting!  Really  effective!  What  does  it  all 
mean? 


76  MOTHER  NATURE 

RENEE 

I  '11  tell  you.  You  remember,  a  month  ago  I  told  you 
to  take  care,  and  defend  me  against  myself?  You 
shrugged  your  shoulders.  And  you  remember, 
yesterday,  after  I  had  warned  you  of  the  importance 
I  would  attach  to  your  answer,  I  asked  you  whether 
you  would  refuse  to  see  that  woman  whose  presence 
here  is  an  insult  to  me?  You  refused.  A  month 
ago  I  still  hoped  I  might  be  able  to  bring  you  closer 
to  me  and  make  you  at  least  behave  as  other  men 
do.  At  that  time  I  had  no  intention  of  doing  what 
I  have  now  decided  on,  and  your  answer  was  what 
urged  me  to  take  the  step. 

OLIVIER  (coldly) 
What  step? 

RENEE 

I  am  going  away. 

MME.   HEURTOUX 

Going  away,  Renee? 

HEURTOUX 

What! 

RENEE 

I  say,  I  am  going  away.    Please  let  me  finish,  father. 
OLIVIER  (disdainfully) 

So  you  are  going  away?  See  where  your  silly  roman- 
tic ideas  are  taking  you!  My  dear,  do  you  know 
you  have  no  right  to  do  that  unless  you  are  divorced 
from  me,  and  also  that  that  divorce  must  first  be 
obtained  ?  You  will  find  it  difficult  to  prove  anything 
against  me. 


MOTHER  NATURE  77 

RENEE 

I  know  that.  But  I  have  no  intention  of  getting  a 
divorce  at  present.  That  will  come  later.  I  am 
simply  going  away.  If  I  stayed  to  discuss  and  argue, 
I  should  continue  to  be  a  slave,  and  that  I  refuse  to 
be.  I  refuse  too,  to  ask  you  for  my  right  to  live  and 
love.  I  am  taking  that  right  now.  So  you  see, 
you  must  free  me  some  day.  Then  I  shall  marry 
and  become  the  sort  of  wife  you  refused  to  let  me  be. 
That  is  why  I  am  leaving. 

OLIVIER  (as  before) 

May  I   know  where  you  are  going? 

RENEE 

No,  but  I  shall  tell  you  what  I  am  going  to  do. 

OLIVIER 
And  what  pray  may  that  be? 

RENEE 

This  evening  I  shall  belong  to  the  man  I  love. 

MME.   HEURTOUX 

What  are  you  saying!    My  dear  child! 

HEURTOUX 
You  don't  know  what  you're  saying! 

OLIVIER 

Stop  it !  This  is  my  affair !  This  evening,  you  say  ? 
Are  you  quite  sure  this  evening  will  be  the  first 
time? 

RENEE 

What  I  am  doing  now  ought  to  speak  for  the  past, 
I  think.  I  am  warning  you,  you  see,  because  I  can't 
bear  to  lie  to  you  or  conceal  anything.  Because 
I'm  not  guilty.  I  feel  sure  I  am  acting  within  my 


78  MOTHER  NATURE 

rights.  I've  submitted  too  long,  waited  too  long 
for  you  to  understand  and  love  me  as  I  wanted  to  be 
loved,  as  I  have  a  right  to  be  loved,  and  as  I 
once  loved  you!  I  loved  you  with  every  illusion 
of  first  love.  But  when  I  began  to  lose  hope, 
and  when  I  saw  that  you  would  never  really  be  my 
husband,  I  thought  that  at  least  you  would  give  me 
a  child  some  day  —  the  child  I  so  longed  for,  that 
would  have  purified  our  passion  and  given  me  some- 
thing to  live  for,  and  make  our  useless  home  some- 
thing beautiful  and  worthy.  But  you  refused!  If 
I  can't  get  that  sort  of  love  and  Me  from  you,  I  don't 
want  to  live.  I  crave  it  with  my  heart,  with  my 
senses  —  and  now  I  am  going  where  I  can  get  it. 
I  am  going  away  deliberately;  I  know  perfectly 
well  what  I  am  doing:  I  am  going  to  give  myself  to 
a  man  who  will  give  me  what  I  want.  I  go  joyfully, 
because  I  shall  take  what  belongs  to  me  by  right. 
What  I  want  above  everything  else  on  earth  is  a  child 
that  will  make  me  a  better  woman,  obedient  to  the 
law  of  life  that  you  so  heartily  despise ! 

OLIVIER 

That    will    do!     Really,    this    is    ridiculous.     You 
seem  to  forget  that  this  is  a  wrong  and  an  outrage 
against  me!    You're  not  the  one  to  argue  with — 
There's  some  one  else   to  reckon   with!     It   must 
be  —  Meryac,  eh? 

RENEE 
Yes. 

OLIVIER 

Good !  I  ought  to  have  suspected  it.  Do  you  think 
for  an  instant  I  '11  allow  you  to  go  off  that  way,  just 


MOTHER  NATURE  79 

because  you  want  full  liberty  for  your  love  affairs? 
I  know  very  well  that  this  isn  't  the  first  time  — 
RENEE 
You  lie! 

OLIVIER 

That's  enough! 

RENEE 

I  am  not  afraid  of  you.     I  am  going  to  do  what  I 
said  I  would.     How  can  you  stop  me?     Supposing 
you  do  to-day,  what  about  to-morrow?    You  can't 
lock  me  up. 
OLIVIER 

I'll  settle  that  with  your  lover. 

RENEE 

I  hardly  think  so.  He  won't  risk  his  life  fighting 
you.  Your  life  is  useless,  his  belongs  to  me. 

OLTVTER 

Oh,  he's  a  coward,  then! 

RENEE 

Do  you  dare  speak  of  cowardice?  You  make  me 
smile.  You  are  afraid  of  life;  you  are  afraid  to 
assume  its  duties  and  responsibilities. 

HEURTOUX 

Renee,  calm  yourself.     Think  of  us! 

OLIVIER 

Why,  it's  all  your  fault.  See  where  those  damned 
sentimental  notions  are  leading  her!  Thrown  her 
into  the  arms  of  the  first  good-looking  male  she 
meets.  I  ought  to  have  known  that  a  woman  brought 
up  by  such  parents  was  not  the  wife  for  an  artist. 
I  could  never  hope  to  bring  her  up  to  my  level  — 


80  MOTHER  NATURE 

HEURTOUX 

If  you  had  been  a  real  artist,  I  don't  think  things 
would  have  come  to  this  pass.  I  don't  approve  of 
what  Renee  is  doing,  but  I  advise  you  not  to  call 
yourself  an  artist.  All  you  do  is  to  muddle  everything 
up  with  words;  every  impression  you  receive  is  from 
a  book  or  a  picture;  your  eyes  can't  bear  direct 
sunlight;  you  deform  and  pervert  nature  by  your 
everlasting  analysis;  you  deny  the  great  laws  of 
life  and  try  to  formulate  rules  for  love  itself.  Do 
you  really  think  you  are  the  artist?  Is  it  not  rather 
Renee  ?  She  gives  herself  up  —  maybe  a  little  too 
readily  —  to  the  marvelous  beauty  of  life;  she  lets 
nature  breathe  the  sweetness  of  life  into  her  veins; 
she  allows  her  healthy  instincts  free  play.  She  thrills 
with  life,  and  laughs  and  cries  at  God's  handiwork, 
which  you  try  to  analyse  and  describe  and  formulate. 
You  never  feel  a  true  emotion,  or  shed  a  tear  — 
Look  at  you  now,  for  instance!  I  repeat,  I  don't 
approve  of  Renee,  but  I  understand! 

OLIVIER 

Let's  cut  this  discussion  short.  Let  her  go.  After 
all,  I  shall  be  freer  than  she.  And,  besides,  my  pride 
wouldn't  allow  me  to  hold  her  by  force.  After 
everything  she  just  said,  I  don't  want  to  see  her 
again.  I  leave  her  to  the  animal  who  wants  her. 
Perhaps  I'll  have  a  little  peace  and  quiet  now. 
I've  wasted  too  much  time  and  energy  on  an  igno- 
rant and  unsympathetic  woman. 
[He  goes  out. 

RENEE  (excitedly) 
I'm  free  now!     (She  goes  to  her  parents,  with  tears 


MOTHER  NATURE  81 

in  her  eyes}  Don't  cry,  father!  Mother,  don't 
blame  me!  And  don't  be  sad.  I'm  going  to  be  so 
happy!  Look  out  there,  see  the  country,  and  the 
sky,  and  the  sunlight!  They  are  all  calling  to  me. 
Everything  is  waiting  for  me.  You  taught  me  to 
love  those  things,  didn't  you  ?  I  belong  to  them,  I  'm 
part  of  them,  because  I  am  a  woman,  a  human 
being.  And  I  'm  going  to  be  everything  that  a  woman 
should  be!  Don't  cry,  mother! 

HEURTOUX 

Well,  I  don't  think  — 

RENEE 

Don't  argue  with  me,  father!  Let  me  go  now. 
I  feel  I  must  obey  the  highest  of  all  laws! 

CURTAIN 


PROGRESS 

(Les  Stapes) 

A   PLAY  IN  THREE  ACTS 

Les  Etapes  was  first  performed  at  the  Theatre  du  Pare, 
Brussels,  in  1907. 


Persons  in  the  play : 

DOCTOR  THERAT 

DOCTOR  LEGLAY,  his  son-in-law 

VANNAIRE 

EDMOND,  Leglay's  son 

A  Man  Patient 

A  Servant 

MADELEINE,  Therat's  daughter 

MADAME  THERAT 

A  Woman  Patient 

The  scene  is  in  two  different  rooms  in  Therat's  home, 
presumably  in  a  large  Belgian  city.  The  time  is  the 
present. 


PROGRESS 

ACT  I 

Doctor  Leglay's  consulting  office.  This  room  connects 
with  the  drawing-room  by  a  large  doorway,  which  is 
open.  The  furnishings  are  severe:  bookcases,  a  desk, 
and  a  table  with  surgical  instruments.  As  the  curtain 
rises,  Doctor  Therat  is  seated,  his  wife  facing  him. 
Leglay  and  Vannaire  are  nearby. 

MME.  THERAT  (to  her  husband) 

You  must  rest;  you  may,  now  that  Paul  is  working 
with  you. 

VANNAIRE 

Your  wife  is  right:  you  must  rest. 

THERAT 

I  don't  intend  to  let  Paul  do  all  the  work  by  himself. 

LEGLAY 

You  know  I  am  quite  ready  to  do  that,  master. 

THERAT 

I  know,  and  I  thank  you.     But  it  would  not  be  right; 

it  wouldn't  be  fitting. 
MME.  THERAT  (interrupting) 

No,  it  wouldn't  be  right  or  fitting  if  Paul  were  an 

ordinary  assistant  or  a  total  stranger;    but  your 

son-in-law,  practically  your  son! 
LEGLAY 

Of  course.     But  I  should  be  only  too  glad  if  I  were 

able  — 

85 


86  PROGRESS 


THERAT 

For  my  part,  I  should  be  sorry.  (To  Leglay)  You 
ought  to  understand.  You  cannot  forsake  science 
after  having  devoted  your  life  to  it.  It  yields  us 
such  glorious  returns.  Only  this  morning  I  operated 
on  a  woman  —  a  poor  creature,  she  would  have 
interested  you,  Vannaire:  splendid  case  for  a  novel- 
ist. She  was  a  young  mother,  abandoned  —  death 
staring  her  in  the  face,  and  the  possibility  of  leaving 
a  helpless  orphan.  (He  rises,  and  speaks  proudly} 
I  saved  her.  That  gives  me  more  joy,  a  juster  reason 
to  be  proud  than  anything  else;  it  gives  me  more 
genuine  pleasure  than  I  could  have  from  any  amount 
of  rest.  At  such  times  we  love  our  profession 
passionately  —  when  we  work,  secretly,  to  preserve 
a  spark  of  life  in  a  being  we  do  not  know,  who  was 
the  day  before  merely  indifferent  to  us,  a  human 
being  from  whom  we  had  absolutely  nothing  to  expect. 
That  being  pays  us  nothing,  and  perhaps  will  never 
suspect  the  danger  from  which  we  have  saved  him. 
At  a  time  like  that  we  do  not  sell  our  power:  we  make 
a  present  of  it.  Our  only  fee  is  the  satisfaction  of 
realizing  what  we  have  accomplished. 

VANNAIRE 

That  must  be  splendid  —  the  finest  sort  of  work! 

MME.   THERAT 

But  you  mustn't  kill  yourself  with  work.  A  time 
comes  when  you  have  given  all  you  have  to  give, 
and  work  is  over. 

THERAT 

Work  is  never  over:  does  death  rest? 


PROGRESS  87 


MME.    THERAT 

But  you  surely  have  a  right  to  think  a  little  of  your- 
self! (Bitterly)  The  finest  sort  of  work!  It's  the 
most  thankless  sort  of  work!  There  is  Therat, 
after  forty  years  of  the  hardest  sort  of  work  —  he's 
not  rich! 

THERAT  (quietly) 

We  do  not  need  wealth,  Nannie.  We  live  comfort- 
ably. 

MME.   THERAT 

Or  if  you'd  had  the  glory  you  deserved  for  all  your 
work  and  your  discoveries  —  !  (With  a  touch  of 
bitterness)  Except  for  your  connection  with  the 
Academy  of  Medicine  —  why,  a  tenor  is  better 
rewarded!  It's  all  a  grand  swindle! 

THERAT 

What  of  it?  The  scientist  does  not  labor  for  him- 
self, his  reputation,  or  his  fortune.  He  works  for 
the  best  that  is  in  him,  to  add  his  mite  to  the 
store  of  human  knowledge  that  has  been  handed 
down  to  him  by  those  who  have  gone  before.  He 
gives  himself  to  the  great  nameless  masses  of  mankind, 
whom  he  does  not  know.  It  is  a  crime  if  he  refuses 
to  relieve  suffering  —  that  is,  if  he  is  able.  We 
ask  nothing  from  the  unknown  man  who  falls,  and 
whom  we  must  help.  We  do  not  think  of  the 
energy  we  spend  in  helping  him;  we  go  to  work  in- 
stinctively, because  the  sight  of  evil  which  can  be 
cured  is  intolerable  to  us.  (With  a  change  in  manner, 
he  says  playfully)  Then,  what  do  you  expect  of  me? 
Do  I  seem  old  and  decrepit?  Never  fear,  Nanine, 


88  PROGRESS 


never  fear;  I  am  not  so  old!  Come,  now,  see  whether 
everything  is  in  order  in  my  office.  It  is  nearly 
time  for  the  consultation.  Are  you  going  to  stay, 
Vannaire? 

VANNAIRE 

Only  a  moment. 

THERAT 

Shall  we  see  you  this  evening? 

VANNAIRE 

Yes. 

THERAT 

You  won't  need  me,  Leglay,  will  you?  You  don't 
anticipate  any  complication? 

LEGLAY 

I  don't  think  so  —  no,  I  hardly  think  so. 

THERAT 

See  you  later. 

[Therat  goes  out  with  his  wife. 

LEGLAY 

Did  you  hear?  He  gives  me  advice  on  how  to  con- 
duct myself!  The  scientist's  personality  matters 
nothing;  his  desire  for  glory  is  nothing  in  com- 
parison with  the  accomplishment  of  his  mission. 
He  doesn't  work  for  himself,  but  for  mankind.  He 
must  seek  the  truth,  and  trouble  his  mind  about 
nothing  else.  —  I  look  up  to  Therat  as  my  master; 
he  gave  me  his  daughter;  I  admire  him  as  a  scientist 
and  love  him  as  a  father.  I  admire  his  enthusiasm, 
and  his  high  sense  of  duty.  He  has  given  me  respect, 
a  sense  of  fidelity  toward  my  work,  and  I  have  acted 
according  to  his  ideals.  But  Therat  is  mistaken: 


PROGRESS  89 


the  very  nobility  of  his  passion  has  led  him  to  formu- 
late and  apply  laws  which  are  too  rigid  and  narrow. 
Can  I  blind  myself  to  reason,  can  I  give  the  lie 
to  that  very  science  which  he  has  taught  me,  to  my 
conscience,  which  he  has  so  jealously  guarded? 
Well,  it  is  the  same  thing  over  again:  who  ever  dis- 
covered a  truth  that  did  not  contain  in  it  somewhere 
an  error?  Was  there  ever  a  genius  so  perfect  that  he 
could  escape  correction  at  the  hands  of  posterity? 

VANNAIRE 

Yes,  yes,  I  know.  From  my  own  experience,  I  know, 
because  I  am  not  a  genius. 

LEGLAY 

You?    But  you  are  famous.    Your  novels  —  ? 

VANNAIRE 

Famous  —  and  disillusioned.  You  still  have  that 
beautiful  faith  which  gives  happiness  to  others,  and 
torture  to  you  who  possess  it.  I  am  afraid  the  same 
disillusion  will  come  to  you  later  on. 

LEGLAY 

Very  well,  if  it  is  a  necessary  preparation  for  the 
future. 

VANNAIRE 

Unfortunately,  it  spoils  the  present.  No  one  but 
a  fool  enjoys  fame.  If  you  are  not  a  fool,  then  you 
will  be  saddened  by  the  thought  that  you  can  foresee, 
almost  to  the  minute,  when  your  fame  will  vanish. 
But  that  makes  little  difference.  You  cannot  choose 
your  destiny.  For  my  part,  I  took  up  writing,  be- 
cause I  always  believed  that  thoughts,  however  slight, 
were  far  too  serious  and  too  sacred  to  be  formulated 


90  PROGRESS 


without  a  great  deal  of  reflection.  A  serious  word, 
spoken  without  premeditation,  is  an  evil  action. 

LEGLAY 

Every  one  respects  and  admires  you. 

VANNAIRE 

At  fifty  I  have  acquired  a  certain  notoriety,  thanks 
to  twenty-five  years  of  ceaseless  labor,  of  feverish 
effort,  directed  toward  the  expression  of  moral 
beauty  which  I  believed,  and  still  believe,  capable 
of  some  little  inspiration  to  the  souls  of  my  fellow 
men.  I  spent  those  twenty-five  years  in  poverty, 
consistently  refusing  to  write  useless  or  harmful 
books,  the  sort  that  would  have  afforded  me  quick 
and  easy  success.  I  was  looked  down  upon  by  the 
successful,  and  at  last,  scarcely  had  I  managed  to 
gain  a  little  respect  for  my  work,  Vhen  the  younger 
generation,  whom  I  loved  and  in  whom  I  had  great 
hopes,  treated  me  as  a  ridiculous  enemy.  They 
gave  me  no  respite,  not  even  a  few  years  —  between 
the  hostility  of  the  older  and  the  younger  gene- 
rations —  in  which  to  experience  the  joy  of  having 
revealed  even  a  little  beauty  and  given  aid  to  human- 
ity. They  might  at  least  wait  until  we  are  dead 
before  demolishing  our  statues. 

LEGLAY 

It  was  cruel  of  them,  I  admit.  But  has  one  the  right 
not  to  be?  I  have  often  tortured  myself  with  the 
same  question.  I  love  Therat,  I  admire  his  work, 
I  should  like  nothing  better  than  to  see  him  end  his 
days  in  glory  —  a  glory  which  he  deserves.  But 
I  know,  I  am  positive,  you  see,  that  he  is  mistaken  — 


-  [PROGRESS  91 


VANNAIRE 

Can't  you  wait  until  he  is  no  longer  with  us?  Until 
Madeleine  no  longer  stands  between  you  both? 

LEGLAY 

Do  you  think  I  have  the  right,  in  order  to  spare  those 
who  are  dear  to  me  and  for  my  own  peace  of  mind, 
to  keep  silent,  and  thereby  condemn  people  who 
might  otherwise  live? 

VANNAIRE  (slowly) 

Are  you  sure  you  are  right? 

LEGLAY  (excitedly) 

Am  I  sure?  I  am  as  sure  of  the  truth  as  if  I  held  it 
here,  tight  in  my  hand,  just  as  I  hold  the  lives  of 
people  it  will  save! 

VANNAIRE  (thoughtfully,  as  he  looks  straight  at  Leglay) 
Therat  spoke  to  me  with  just  that  confidence,  thirty 
years  ago. 

LEGLAY 

I  know.  He  thought  he  was  right,  but  he  was  over- 
confident. He  thought  he  knew  the  whole  truth. 

VANNAIRE 

And  now  you  think  you  do. 

LEGLAY 

My  truth  is  the  result  of  his  error,  which  I  have 
studied.  But  what  difference  does  it  make?  I 
believe!  When  a  man  believes,  he  must  proclaim 
his  belief  from  the  house-tops.  I  feel  I  must  sow 
my  knowledge  everywhere  among  men.  It  will 
bear  fruit.  If  I  kept  it  to  myself,  it  would  become 
sterile  and  die. 


92  PROGRESS 


VANNAIRE 

But  if  the  germ  itself  is  an  error? 

LEGLAY 

Every  error  needs  only  to  be  confronted  by  the  truth, 
and  it  will  be  corrected.  But  to  keep  the  truth  to 
yourself,  and  say  nothing  about  the  error,  is  the  act 
of  an  accomplice.  And  besides,  one  can  benefit 
mankind  by  dragging  an  error  to  light  and  destroying 
it.  But  I  tell  you,  I  am  sure!  There  is  no  possible 
room  for  doubt.  What  I  maintain  is  based  upon  all 
the  laws  of  life.  If  I  could  only  explain  — 

VANNAIRE 

No,  no,  Leglay.  I  am  not  a  scientist,  and  I  shouldn't 
understand.  And  then  —  I  might  be  obliged  to 
agree  with  you.  I  probably  should.  And  that  would 
seem  a  little  like  betraying  an  old  friend.  I  feel 
certain  I  should  take  sides  with  you,  and  that  would 
mean  that  I  should  be  false  to  my  generation,  which 
admires  Therat  — 

LEGLAY 

No  more  than  I  do.  Why  can't  we  change  our  ideas, 
and  cast  aside  our  errors?  Why  can  we  not  turn 
over  a  new  leaf,  improve  ourselves,  carry  on  the  work 
we  have  begun? 

VANNAIRE 

Impossible,  my  friend.  The  men  who  make  it  pos- 
sible for  others  to  reach  the  goal  of  beauty  and  truth 
which  they  themselves  have  discovered,  are  incap- 
able of  making  that  beauty  and  truth  triumph. 
Their  passion  was  too  jealous  to  allow  the  rest. 
A  man  never  notices  the  gradual  aging  of  a  woman 


PROGRESS  93 


whom  he  loves;  he  does  not  wish  to  have  her 
young  again,  for  he  has  grown  old  along  with  her, 
and  can  no  longer  supply  any  but  the  comparatively 
small  demands  she  makes  upon  him. 

LEGLAY 

And  for  that  reason  the  young  must  be  energetic; 
if  they  are  not,  they  stagnate. 

VANNAIRE 

Of  course,  of  course.  I  don't  blame  you,  Leglay. 
But  I  am  sorry  for  Therat,  and  for  you,  and  for  Made- 
leine. You  are  facing  a  terrific  struggle.  I  did 
what  you  asked  of  me;  I  took  chances  and  just 
mentioned  certain  books,  certain  articles  touching 
upon  methods  opposed  to  his  own.  He  was  at 
once  deeply  agitated,  and  became  almost  severe; 
he  was  bitter,  and  lost  his  temper  when  he  spoke 
of  the  younger  men,  their  self-sufficiency,  their 
prejudice,  their  lack  of  disinterestedness.  He  be- 
haved exactly  as  I  thought  he  would.  It  was  quite 
impossible  to  argue  with  him. 

LEGLAY 

Oh!     (A  pause)     Would  he  discuss  any  points  at  all? 

VANNAIRE 

Oh,  yes,  only  I  didn't  understand  very  much  of  what 
he  said:  therapeutics,  and  so  on;  it  was  all  too 
far  from  the  field  of  a  poor  cynical  psychologist. 
Have  you  spoken  to  Madeleine  yet? 

LEGLAY 

Yes. 

VANNAIRE 

Well? 


94  PROGRESS 


LEGLAY 

She  was  as  upset  as  he,  and  as  firm  in  her  ideas. 

VANNAIRE 

She  defends  her  father. 

LEGLAY 

Whom,  by  the  way,  I  am  not  attacking;  I  am 
merely  trying  to  complete  the  work  he  has  begun. 
Unfortunately,  she  understands  something  of  that 
work.  If  she  were  absolutely  ignorant,  she  would 
stand  between  her  affection  for  her  father  and  her 
love  for  me,  and  her  love  for  me  —  she  adores  me  — 
would  win  out.  But  she  knows  a  little,  and  she 
agrees  with  her  father.  Women  cling  to  what  they 
know  with  the  more  egotistical  tenacity,  because 
they  so  rarely  know.  If  my  Madeleine  knew  nothing, 
she  would  blindly  believe  in  the  ability  of  the  man 
she  loves! 

VANNAIRE 

If  she  had  been  that  sort  of  woman,  you  would  not 
have  loved  her. 
LEGLAY 

That's  probably  true.     And  yet  her  very  intelli- 
gence and  culture  now  rise  up  and  form  a  barrier 
between  us. 
[Enter  a  Servant. 

SERVANT 

Monsieur,  the  gentleman  who  comes  every  Tues- 
day is  here. 
LEGLAY  (quickly) 

He's  here?  Show  him  in  at  once.  (The  servant  goes 
out,  and  Leglay  loalks  toward  the  large  door)  Excuse 


PROGRESS  95 


me,  please,  Vannaire.     Please  stay;  I  shan't  be  long 
—  not  more   than   a   moment.     (He  goes   into   the 
drawing-room,  and  returns  shortly  after  with  a  man, 
whom  he  leads  to  the  window)     How  are  you  ? 

THE   PATIENT 

I'm  better,  Doctor;  I'm  sure  I'm  better.  There's 
less  irritation. 

LEGLAY 

The  cough? 

THE   PATIENT 

Not  so  bad. 
LEGLAY  (joyfully) 

Good!  Healthy  color  in  the  cheeks,  too.  I  was 
anxious  to  know  at  once.  Now,  will  you  wait  a 
few  moments  for  me?  (He  conducts  the  Patient  back 
into  the  adjoining  room}  I  '11  ask  you  to  come  in  again 
shortly,  and  we'll  fix  you  up.  Good.  Just  a  few 
minutes,  eh?  And  then  we'll  — 
[Leglay  closes  the  door  as  soon  as  the  Patient  leaves. 

LEGLAY 

You  see  my  situation  now.  That  man  came  to  me 
with  a  bad  case  of  tubercular  ulcer.  He  is  still  ill, 
but  vastly  improved  since  I  took  hold  of  him.  I 
am  delighted  to  see  signs  of  life  again  in  his  eyes. 
But  I  must  hide  him  —  this  man  whose  life  I  am 
saving  —  from  my  father-in-law;  I  must  be  careful 
not  to  refer  to  him,  because  Therat  must  not  take 
my  patient  from  me.  He  mustn't  touch  him; 
I  want  to  take  care  of  him  myself.  If  Therat  knew, 
he  might  decide  that  an  operation  was  necessary, 
and  he  would  be  acting  from  noble  and  disinterested 


96  PROGRESS 


motives.  Now,  such  an  operation  would  not  kill 
the  patient,  and  it  would  undoubtedly  remove  the 
cause  of  his  suffering,  but  it  would  be  disastrous 
all  the  same,  because  it  might  easily  give  cause  to 
other  evils,  not  so  easily  remedied.  So  you  see  I 
must  treat  my  man  in  secret.  I  am  continually 
afraid  that  my  father-in-law  will  catch  sight  of  him. 
Of  course,  this  one  patient  is  nothing:  there  are 
others,  whom  he  does  know  of.  Every  day  they 
come  with  the  fullest  confidence  and  ask  us  to 
save  their  lives.  I  can't  choose  my  own  means, 
I  must  take  anything  that  comes  to  hand  that 
might  help  them.  Even  now  there  are  patients 
waiting.  Now  is  when  they  come.  At  this  hour 
every  day  I  suffer  agonies;  every  time  the  bell 
rings  it  is  like  an  appeal  to  my  conscience,  my 
tortured  conscience. 

VANNAIRE 

You  are  not  doing  wrong. 

LEGLAY 

I  am  not  doing  all  the  good  I  might.  (After  a 
pause,  passing  his  hand  over  his  brow)  Well,  I  shall 
see  whether  there  is  still  some  way  of  doing  my 
duty,  and  allowing  those  who  are  dear  to  me  to  live 
in  peace.  It  is  a  very  difficult  matter. 
[As  he  speaks,  he  fills  a  syringe  with  a  fluid  and  lays  it 
on  the  desk. 

VANNAIRE 

Good-by,  Leglay.    I  '11  see  you  later. 

LEGLAY 

Good-by,  and  thank  you. 


PROGRESS  97 


VANNAIRE 

I  'm  afraid  I  haven 't  given  you  much  encouragement. 

LEGLAY 

That  was  not  your  fault.  Your  good- will  is  enough; 
you  might  have  been  against  me,  you  know.  You 
are  an  old  friend  of  Therat's,  and  you  might  have 
thought  — 

VANNAIRE 

I  think  nothing.     I  only  know  that  you  are  both  very 
firm  in  your  convictions,  and  I  have  no  idea  which 
of  you  is  right.     But  it  would  be  only  natural  that 
you  should  formulate  your  truth  after  Therat  had 
made   a   practical   application   of   his.     I   am   just 
trying  to  break  the  shock.     Good  day. 
LEGLAY  (accompanying  him  to  the  door) 
Thank  you  once  more.     To-night,  then. 

VANNAIRE 

Yes. 

\_He  goes  out.  Leglay  goes  impatiently  to  the  door  of 
the  drawing-room,  opens  it,  but  starts  back  in  surprise 
as  Therat  appears,  followed  by  the  Patient. 

LEGLAY 

Oh,  it's  you! 

THERAT 

Yes,    I    have    just    examined    Monsieur.     (To    the 

Patient)     Come  back  to-morrow. 
LEGLAY  (in  consternation) 

But  I  was  going  to  — 
THERAT  (with  authority) 

He  will  return  to-morrow.     (To  the  Patient)    We 

shall  take  care  of  you. 

[He  rings. 


98  PROGRESS 


LEGLAY  (calmly} 

Very  well.     Will  you  come  back  to-morrow  ?     (Leglay 
conducts  the  Patient  to  the  door)     To-morrow,  then. 

THE   PATIENT 

Yes,  Doctor.     (Fearfully)     You  don't  think  it  will 
be  necessary  to  —  ? 

LEGLAY 

Don't  worry.     Everything  is  all  right.     We  shall 
continue  the  treatment. 

[The   Patient   goes   out.     Leglay   returns   to    Therat, 
scrutinizing  him  but  saying  nothing. 
THERAT  (calmly) 

We  shall  operate  on  that  man  the  day  after  to-morrow. 

LEGLAY 

Master! 
THERAT  (impassively) 

Yes? 

LEGLAY 

But  —  but  —  it  is  not  necessary. 

THERAT 

Tubercular  ulcer:    it  is  necessary.     How  could  you 

have  failed  to  notice  it?     He  must  be  operated  upon 

at  once. 
LEGLAY  (resolutely) 

I  promise  to  cure  him  without  the  operation. 
THERAT  (picking  up  the  syringe  and  flinging  it  away) 

With  that? 

LEGLAY 

With  that  —  and  other  things. 

THERAT 

First  of  all,  what's  in  that  thing? 


PROGRESS  99 


LEGLAY 

A  composition  I've  been  experimenting  with. 

THERAT 

And  of  which  you  have  told  me  nothing. 

LEGLAY 

I  was  afraid  you  wouldn't  believe  in  it. 

THERAT 

And  why  did  you  never  mention  this  man  to  me? 
He  told  me  you  had  been  treating  him  for  the  past 
three  months? 

LEGLAY 

I  thought  you  would  consider  an  operation  necessary. 

THERAT 

Ah  ?  You  are  right.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  think  it  is. 
He  must  be  operated  upon  immediately. 

LEGLAY 

Please  let  me  treat  him.     I  am  sure  of  what  I  am 
doing. 
THERAT  (proudly) 

And  what  about  me?  You  think  I  am  not  sure? 
When  you  learn  your  mistake,  it  will  be  too  late. 

LEGLAY 

I  am  not  making  a  mistake.  I  have  cured  many 
others  the  same  way. 

THERAT 

Without  taking  me  into  your  confidence,  of  course! 
You  seem  to  forget  that  you  are  working  for  me, 
and  are  responsible  to  me.  I  tell  you  there  is 
danger,  grave  and  imminent  danger,  unless  we 
operate,  and  operate  we  will. 


100  PROGRESS 


LEGLAY 

Impossible. 
THERAT  (angrily) 
What! 

LEGLAY 

Please,  master  —  father,  listen  to  me:  I  shouldn't 
think  of  opposing  my  will  to  yours.  If  I  thought 
your  help  was  indispensable,  I  should  have  brought 
this  patient  to  you,  in  all  humility.  But  an  oper- 
ation is  not  necessary:  there  is  another  way  of  curing 
him.  He  is  improving  already. 

THERAT 

But  you  know  it's  not  a  dangerous  operation? 

LEGLAY 

No  operation  is  without  danger. 
THERAT  (bitterly) 

I  see:  you've  been  reading  some  new  dissertation. 
I  really  think  you  belong  to  the  opposition. 

LEGLAY 

Against  you?  No.  You  know  very  well  I  don't. 
I  am  just  one  of  those  who  wish  to  supplement  your 
work,  and  with  all  due  respect  complete  your  experi- 
ments. 

THERAT 

Destroy,  rather!  I  am  defending  my  methods  and 
ideas.  I  have  arrived  at  my  beliefs  only  after  an 
enormous  amount  of  work.  That  man  will  be  oper- 
ated upon  because  I  judge  an  operation  necessary. 

LEGLAY 

No,  no,  no.  I  won't  have  it.  He  is  mine,  do  you 
understand,  mine !  His  life  has  been  in  my  hands  for 


PROGRESS  101 


the  past  three  months;  little  by  little,  I  have  built 
him  up,  strengthened  him,  made  him  a  new  man. 
For  three  months  I  have  watched  anxiously  over 
him,  and  seen  him  revive.  Three  months  ago  you 
might  have  had  a  right  to  decide:  his  life  was  his 
own  to  dispose  of.  But  to-day  it  belongs  to  me  as 
well,  because  of  what  I  have  added  to  it  since  I 
first  took  him.  You  may  not  touch  him,  you  have 
no  right  to  cut  into  the  living  flesh  which  I  have  built 
up.  I  can't  allow  you  to,  and  I  won't!  It  isn't 
my  pride,  it  is  my  instinct  that  forces  me  to  do  this. 
(In  a  low  determined  tone)  You  know  that  instinct 
of  preservation  in  all  of  us:  it  seems  to  stretch 
forth  arms,  and  clutch  at  others  — 
THERAT  (troubled) 

But  what  are  you  afraid  of  ?  Did  you  ever  know  an 
operation  of  this  sort  to  prove  fatal? 

LEGLAY 

Fatal,  no.  But  I  have  seen  what  is  just  as  serious  — 
more  serious  — 

THERAT 

Really? 

LEGLAY 

Yes.  Do  you  remember  that  woman,  the  one  you 
operated  on  two  days  before  my  wedding? 

THERAT 

She  is  still  alive,  is  she  not? 

LEGLAY 

Yes,  she  is  alive.  But  I  watched  her  case,  because  even 
at  that  time  I  had  begun  to  doubt.  She  is  condemned 
to  live  a  wounded,  mutilated  creature,  half-dead. 


102  PROGRESS 


THERAT 

Without  me  she  would  have  died. 

LEGLAY 

No:  we  should  have  cured  her. 

THERAT 

Cured  her?     (Sarcastically)     You,  perhaps? 

LEGLAY 

With  your  help,  if  you  had  consented  to  assist  me; 
or  without  it,  if  you  had  allowed  me  a  free  hand. 

THERAT 

How  much  time  would  you  have  required? 

LEGLAY 

I  don't  know  —  it  makes  little  difference.     But  I 
would  have  restored  life  to  a  whole  creature.     Now 
she  is  atrophied,  joyless,  without  ambition,  a  mother 
without  strength  and  energy. 
THERAT  (troubled) 

Do  you  think  that  was  my  fault?  You  were  present 
with  me.  I  did  not  touch  a  single  organ  that  was 
indispensable. 

LEGLAY 

What  do  we  know  about  that?  Merely  because  we 
don't  know  the  function  of  an  organ,  and  are  unable 
to  determine  what  it  is  used  for,  we  conclude,  most 
unwarrantably,  that  it  is  useless.  And  in  the  name 
of  a  science  that  is  still  only  feeling  its  way,  that  is 
full  of  mystery,  which  is  every  day  subject  to  modifi- 
cation of  some  sort,  we  commit  irreparable  blunders, 
cut  away  some  part  of  the  human  mechanism 
which  is  not  superfluous,  because  nature  has  created 
it.  We  don't  know  why  it  is  there:  therefore  it  is 


PROGRESS  103 


good  for  nothing!  We  are  like  peasants  who  burn 
a  Titian  because  we  know  nothing  of  art. 

THERAT 

There  is  a  lesson  there,  to  be  sure. 

LEGLAY 

No,  no.  Excuse  me,  if  I  am  too  excited.  I  am  afraid, 
I  tell  you,  and  I  frankly  confess  the  agony  I  feel. 
I  don't  mean  to  offend  you,  I  want  only  to  tell  you 
that  I  am  afraid:  for  mankind,  for  you,  for  your 
reputation  — 

THERAT 

Which  you  now  wish  to  shatter  —  you  whom  I  made 
what  you  are  —  a  scientist,  and  my  own  son! 

LEGLAY 

But  I  am  trying  to  save  your  reputation.  Oh,  I 
want  so  much  to  convince  you!  You  know  how 
much  I  admire  you.  I  don't  want  you  to  risk 
damaging  the  reputation  you  have  worked  so  hard 
to  earn  —  merely  by  obstinacy.  And  besides,  I 
have  no  right  to  think  of  you,  or  myself. 

THERAT 

Yourself,  perhaps!  I  am  fifty  years  old;  I  have 
behind  me  thirty  years  of  work  and  experience, 
and  I  am  in  a  way  your  father.  My  pride,  my 
name  —  and  Madeleine's,  too  —  ought  to  be  sacred 
to  you. 

LEGLAY 

You  taught  me  to  believe  that  as  individuals  we  did 
not  exist,  that  we  did  not  work  for  ourselves,  but 
for  all  mankind.  In  the  struggles  with  my  conscience, 
when  I  think  of  you,  your  face  disappears  and  I 


104  PROGRESS 


seem  to  see  other  faces,  innumerable  faces,  stretching 
far  off   into   the   distance  —  into  the  future;    and 
men,   women,   children   rise   up,    suffering,    afraid, 
begging  for  help.     And  I  tremble  — 
THERAT  (triumphantly) 
You  tremble?    Send  them  to  me! 

LEGLAY 

No. 

THERAT 

Send  them  to  me !  And  don't  worry.  Let  me  bring 
comfort  and  assurance  to  your  multitudes,  by 
showing  them  my  assurance.  I  have  about  me  a 
whole  legion  of  human  beings  —  men  and  women — 
who  came  tottering  to  me,  more  dead  than  alive. 
I  have  kept  off  death  with  the  clean,  sharp  edge  of 
my  knife,  held  tight  in  my  hand.  Let  me  show 
your  restless  multitude  men  who  would  have  been 
dead  twenty  years  ago  but  for  my  help.  I  can  look 
upon  them  with  pride  and  calm  assurance.  I  have 
re-created  them,  made  them  over,  by  the  sure 
skill  of  my  hand,  the  quickness  and  accuracy  of  my 
eye.  Show  that  to  your  multitude,  and  tell  it  that 
my  hand  is  still  sure  and  my  mind  clear.  You  need 
no  longer  be  afraid! 
[_Enter  Madeleine. 

Ah,  Madeleine,  it's  you?    Come  — 
[Madeleine  looks  anxiously  at  the  two  men. 
LEGLAY  (nervously) 
Madeleine! 

MADELEINE 

What  is  it? 


PROGRESS  105 


LEGLAY 

Don't  stay  here ! 

THERAT 

You  must  stay  —  by  all  means.  She  must  hear  what 
you  think  of  her  father,  and  what  you  intend  to  do. 
She  will  judge! 

LEGLAY 

Please  be  calm!  Madeleine,  you  know  what  I  think 
of  your  father.  I  am  only  asking  him  to  listen  to 
me,  as  a  teacher  listens  to  the  respectful  objections 
of  his  pupil.  His  work  deserves  the  greatest  admi- 
ration, but  I  believe  that  in  certain  cases,  there  is 
another  way  of  proceeding  — 

THERAT 

A  better  way,  eh?  How  modest  of  you!  You  have 
been  able  to  discover  in  a  few  years  what  thirty 
years  of  research  and  work  have  not  revealed  to  me! 
(To  Madeleine)  You  hear? 

MADELEINE 

Father,  you  must  not  get  so  excited. 

LEGLAY 

I  have  benefited  by  your  work.  Your  knowledge 
helped  me,  reenforced  me.  Thanks  to  you,  I  began 
where  you  had  left  off.  You  accomplished  one 
stage  in  the  evolution.  You  made  your  researches 
in  your  own  field,  and  discovered  all  there  was  to 
discover.  I  have  looked  elsewhere:  I  have 
noticed  that  life  has  infinite  resources,  that  it  has 
furnished  us  weapons  with  which  to  fight  disease; 
a  whole  mass  of  defenders  which  we  must  call  upon 
for  aid.  Now,  this  serum  — 


106  .  PROGRESS 


THERAT 

Will  not  restore  a"  single  organ  or  replace  a  decayed 
tissue! 

LEGLAY 

It  will  arrest  the  course  of  the  disease  without  taking 
anything  from  the  system. 

THERAT 

Always? 

LEGLAY 

Often.  But  when  there  is  the  least  possibility,  you 
must  — 

THERAT 

So  you're  advising  me!  I  see.  I  see  that  you,  my 
son,  are  trying  to  throw  me,  my  thoughts,  my  work, 
my  discoveries,  into  the  scrap-heap  —  and  with  the 
very  weapons  I  have  trained  you  to  use!  Very 
well,  I  can't  prevent  you.  I  suppose  it's  only 
natural  for  the  young  to  crowd  the  old  out  of  the 
way.  You  want  room  — 

LEGLAY 

Oh,  master! 

MADELEINE 

Father,  you  don't  think  —  ?    Paul  may  be  mistaken — 
LEGLAY  (sadly) 

I  am  not  mistaken. 

THERAT 

I  can  defend  myself,  I  can  prove  I'm  not  yet  ready 
to  be  laid  on  the  shelf.     And  I  don't  need  help, 
not  even  yours.     The  ungrateful  future  is  just  a  little 
too  much  in  a  hurry. 
[Madeleine  sinks  into  a  chair. 


PROGRESS  107 


LEGLAY 

If  you  were  willing  to  discuss  the  matter  calmly, 
I  should  be  glad  to  tell  — 

THERAT 

We  shall  discuss  it  when  you  know  as  much  as  I  do. 
LEGLAY  (discouraged) 

Then  we  shall  never  discuss  it.  The  younger  and 
the  older  generations  can  never  sincerely,  peacefully, 
compare  then*  convictions,  their  discoveries,  and 
their  consciences.  The  older  will  always  say  to  the 
younger,  after  having  taught  him  all  he  knew:  "You 
are  too  young,  you  don't  know  —  " 

THERAT 

And  the  other  insinuates:  "You  are  too  old,  and 
you  no  longer  know."  Nor  is  it  the  younger  who 
suffers. 

LEGLAY 

Master,  you  don't  doubt  my  good  faith,  do  you? 
I  believe  sincerely  in  what  I  maintain.  I  believe 
that  if  you  modified  your  methods,  restricted  the 
application  of  them  hi  a  simple  way,  science  and 
mankind  would  gain  immeasurably.  And  you  sin- 
cerely believe  that  I  ought  to  be  silent,  for  your  sake, 
for  the  sake  of  my  future. 

THERAT 

For  my  sake!  I  ask  nothing  of  you.  I  maintain 
that  you  are  presumptuous,  and  that  your  presump- 
tion blinds  you.  I  am  ready  to  defend  my  science 
against  your  theories.  That  is  all. 

LEGLAY 

So  we  are  —  ? 


108  PROGRESS 


THERAT 

Adversaries,  yes.    You  wished  it. 
MADELEINE  (rising) 
Oh! 

LEGLAY 

And  we  —  ? 

THERAT 

Shall  separate  —  of  course. 
MADELEINE  (terrified) 

Father!    Father! 

[She  falls  into  the  chair  again,  her  face  buried  in  her 

hands. 
LEGLAY  (Booking  at  his  wife) 

Madeleine? 
THERAT  (with  an  effort) 

Madeleine!    She  will  tell  you. 

\_He  goes  toward  the  door. 
LEGLAY  (taking  a  step  toward  him} 

Master,  won't  you  —  ? 
THERAT  (turning  to  him  coldly) 

What? 
LEGLAY  (after  a  moment's  hesitation) 

Very  well. 

{Therat  goes  out.    For  a  few  moments  Leglay  and 

Madeleine  say  nothing. 
MADELEINE  (crying) 

Why  did  you  tell  him? 

LEGLAY 

I  had  to. 

MADELEINE 

You  promised  me  you  would  wait. 


PROGRESS  109 


LEGLAY 

I  did  wait.  I  have  been  waiting  for  months,  as  you 
know,  and  I've  been  tortured.  And  I  would  have 
continued  to  wait,  but  your  father  happened  to  see 
one  of  my  patients,  and  insisted  that  I  should  act 
on  his  advice.  I  couldn't  allow  that.  It  would 
not  be  right. 

MADELEINE 

Is  it  any  more  right  to  drive  him  to  despair,  and 
make  his  last  years  bitter?  You  honor  him,  you 
love  him  —  or  at  least  you  did? 

LEGLAY 

I  still  love  him,  and  I  admire  him,  too. 

MADELEINE 

When  you  love  people,  you  believe  as  they  do,  and 
don't  make  them  suffer. 

LEGLAY 

There  are  duties  that  are  above  respect  and  above 
affection. 

MADELEINE 

Toward  whom?  Toward  people  you  don't  know. 
You  are  sacrificing  my  father  for  total  strangers, 
sacrificing  me,  too  — 

LEGLAY 

You,  Madeleine?  Don't  say  that!  I  have  thought 
of  no  one  but  you  for  ever  so  long.  If  it  hadn't 
been  for  you,  and  for  the  child  you  are  going  to  bear, 
I  should  have  acted  according  to  my  conscience  long 
ago.  That  is  the  only  reason  why  I  have  not  gone 
ahead:  because  you  don't  believe  in  me,  because  I 
have  not  been  able  to  convince  you.  I  wanted  to 


110  PROGRESS 


go  on,  with  your  approval,  yours  above  all.  You're 
torturing  me  now  — 

MADELEINE 

I  believe  what  my  father  has  taught  me.  I  believe 
in  his  uprightness,  and  in  his  reputation  as  a  scientist. 
I  grew  up  while  he  was  making  that  reputation, 
and  it  shaped  my  heart  and  my  reason.  Do  you 
ask  me  to  forget  all  that?  Forget  how  passionately, 
how  lovingly  he  guarded  and  watched  over  me,  so 
that  a  little  of  his  glory  might  be  reflected  upon  me  ? 
Now  for  the  first  time,  you  wish  that  glory  to  weigh 
a  little  heavy  on  him,  and  you  ask  his  daughter  to 
turn  from  him.  I  couldn't!  I  am  too  much  afraid 
of  being  ungrateful. 

LEGLAY 

Are  you  not  rather  afraid  of  being  selfish?  You 
are  not  afraid  to  ask  me  to  sacrifice  not  only  the  pride 
but  the  very  lives  of  hundreds,  perhaps  thousands, 
for  the  peace  of  mind  of  those  who  are  dear  to  you  ? 

MADELEINE 

I  ask  nothing  of  them!     I  owe  them  nothing.     My 
father  has  already  sacrificed  too  much  to  a  world 
that  is  of  no  interest  to  mev  and  of  which  I  know 
nothing.     I  care  about  the  happiness  of  those  to 
whom  I  owe  something. 
LEGLAY  (protesting) 
Madeleine! 

MADELEINE 

I  care  nothing  about  the  others.    I  don't  need  them. 
LEGLAY  (irritated) 

Do  you  think  so?  Still,  the  moment  anything  goes 
wrong,  you  are  the  first  to  appeal  to  science,  that  very 


PROGRESS  111 


science  which  has  been  so  slow  in  its  formation, 
through  centuries  of  human  effort.  Can  you  live 
without  taking  into  account  your  duties  toward  those 
who  are  unknown  to  you?  You  can,  of  course,  but 
only  if  you  blind  yourself  to  all  they  have  done,  all 
they  have  taught  you.  You  can,  but  you  will  have 
to  live  in  a  cave,  clothe  yourself  hi  the  skins  of  beasts, 
eat  what  I  can  kill,  asking  no  help  of  me  to  bring 
your  child  into  the  world,  a  child  whom  you  cannot 
teach  to  read  —  because  that  is  only  done  with  the 
aid  of  books,  books  written  by  men  you  don't  know! 
MADELEINE  (crying) 
Paul,  you  are  brutal! 

LEGLAY 

What  you  say  is  abominable;  it  wounds  me.  It 
does  not  sound  as  if  it  came  from  your  generous 
self  —  from  your  intelligence :  you  can't  really  think 
it.  The  truth  is,  you  do  not  believe  in  me.  You 
don't  hesitate  a  moment  between  what  your  father 
says,  and  what  I  say. 

MADELEINE 

You  forget  that  I,  too,  know  — 

LEGLAY 

You  don't  want  to  know  anything  except  what  your 
father  has  taught  you.  You  shut  your  eyes  to  every- 
thing else. 

MADELEINE 

Yes,  I  know  I  am  ignorant.  This  is  not  the  first 
time  I  have  felt  that  you  despised  my  intellect. 

LEGLAY 

You  ignorant?    Unfortunately,  you  are  not. 


112  PROGRESS 


MADELEINE 

You  wish  I  were,  in  order  that  I  might  always  agree 
with  you.  A  woman  ought  to  be  merely  a  com- 
placent bedfellow  and  nothing  else.  Oh,  yes.  She 
oughtn't  to  have  ideas  of  her  own;  she  ought  never 
to  judge.  She  is  created  only  to  be  loved,  and  to 
follow  her  husband.  That  is  your  ideal! 

LEGLAY 

My  ideal  is  —  was  —  a  love  that  should  unite  two 
thoughts  as  intimately  as  — 

MADELEINE 

As  the  one  is  willing  to  give  in  to  the  other! 

LEGLAY 

If  that  dream  is  impossible,  if  the  brain  is  to  be 
considered  more  important  than  the  heart,  if  intellect 
insists  upon  rebelling  against  love  — 

MADELEINE 

Love!  A  fine  sort  of  love  that  insists  on  submission 
to  everything,  that  would  force  me  to  be  ungrateful! 

LEGLAY 

Madeleine,  let's  not  say  things  we  shall  regret. 

MADELEINE 

Let  us  say  what  we  think.  Let  us  not  be  false  to 
our  reason,  and  make  believe  that  we  love  each  other! 
You  love  only  my  body. 

LEGLAY 

You  say  I  don't  love  you!  (He  seizes  her  hands 
violently)  I  don't  love  you?  We  don't  love  each 
other?  Madeleine,  remember,  think  of  those  won- 
derful days  —  of  madness,  folly  —  ! 


PROGRESS  113 


MADELEINE 

I  won't!  I  don't  want  to  remember  them.  That 
was  a  time  when  instinct  had  the  upper  hand.  For 
the  rest  of  our  lives  we  ought  to  forget. 

LEGLAY 

No,  they  were  beautiful  days,  which  ought  to  make 
us  forget  the  cares  of  life,  free  us  from  the  weight  of 
thoughts,   and  render  us  two  irresponsible  beings 
serenely  at  one  with  each  other. 
MADELEINE  (tearing  herself  away  from  him) 

No,  no!  I  don't  want  to  think  of  that!  It  leads 
to  base  weakness!  I  don't  want  to  be  a  vile  play- 
thing, an  instrument  of  unthinking  pleasure!  That 
is  not  love!  We  don't  think  the  same  way,  you  and 
I.  We  don't  love  each  other  any  longer. 

LEGLAY 

You  can't  believe  that! 

MADELEINE 

I  certainly  cannot  love  any  one  who  insults  a  man 
I  admire  and  worship,  who  sacrifices  everything  to 
foolish  pride,  possibly  interest  — 

LEGLAY 

Madeleine,  I  forbid  you! 

MADELEINE 

What!    You  can't  forbid  me  anything. 

LEGLAY 

No,  I  don't  want  to,  but  you  can't  talk  that  way  to 
me.  Think,  think  of  what  binds  us  together,  think  of 
the  child  you  are  going  to  give  me,  of  the  hope  and 
confidence  with  which  we  created  it.  Madeleine, 
don't  let  your  pride  destroy  all  our  happiness.  You 
and  I  are  sincere,  loyal  human  beings.  Suppose  we 


114  PROGRESS 


don't  agree  ?  Very  well,  but  we  have  the  same  ideals ; 
our  eyes  are  lit  by  the  same  flame.  Look  —  (He 
takes  her  hands  and  draws  her  toward  him)  Look 
into  my  eyes;  you  see  truth  there  —  I  read  it  in 
yours.  Now  you  dare  not  tell  me  we  no  longer 
love  each  other.  My  wife!  You  are  my  wife,  you 
will  remain  my  wife;  you  aren't  the  sort  of  person 
to  whom  memories  mean  nothing.  Ours  are  so 
profound,  Madeleine,  they  raise  us  so  far  above  our 
thoughts,  our  foolish  pride!  Look  at  me.  (Almost 
unconsciously,  Madeleine  softens,  and  allows  herself 
to  be  drawn  into  his  embrace)  You  aren't  against 
me,  are  you?  You  are  not  my  enemy? 

MADELEINE 

But,  father  —  ? 

LEGLAY 

You  are  not  against  him,  either.  On  the  contrary, 
you  will  be  a  link,  a  strong  link  between  us,  and 
perhaps  some  day  you  will  succeed  in  bringing  us 
together.  You,  Madeleine,  are  the  future,  you  will 
bring  us  the  future.  For  the  child's  sake,  the  quarrels 
of  the  past  and  the  present  must  be  forgotten.  Every- 
thing will  quiet  down,  you  will  see.  We  do  love 
each  other,  don't  we?  You  will  stay  with  me? 
Won't  you  ? 

[Madeleine  does  not  answer,  but  she  softly  responds 
to  his  embrace.  He  is  about  to  kiss  her,  when  Madame 
Therat  appears  in  the  doorway,  in  terror. 

MME.   THERAT 

Madeleine!     Paul! 

MADELEINE 

What  is  it? 


PROGRESS  115 


MME.    THERAT 

Your  father! 

MADELEINE 

What  is  it? 

MME.   THERAT 

He's  ill  —  fainted !     I  don't  know  —  Come  quick ! 

MADELEINE 

Oh!   (Turns  to  Paul)     You  see? 

[They  both  rush  to  the  door.    At  the  same  moment, 

Therat  appears,  pale,  gaunt,  and  proud. 

THERAT 

It's  nothing,  Nanine,  nothing  —  a  little  dizziness  — 
nothing  at  all.  (Looking  at  Leglay)  I'm  still  hale 
and  hearty.  Well,  have  you  decided  anything? 
(Leglay  does  not  reply.  Therat  turns  to  Madeleine, 
sorrowfully)  Madeleine,  Madeleine! 

MME.   THERAT 

What  do  you  mean? 

THERAT 

Madeleine ! 
MADELEINE  (going  toward  him,  sobbing) 

Father!    Oh,  father,  I  am  with  you,  I  am  with  you! 
LEGLAY  (crying  out) 

Madeleine ! 

[He  stops  himself  with  an  effort. 

THERAT 

And  you  ? 

LEGLAY  (after  a  pause) 

I?  (Gazing  for  a  long  while  at  Madeleine)  I  —  I 
have  no  longer  the  right  to  stay  with  you.  I  —  I  am 
going. 

CURTAIN 


116  PROGRESS 


ACT  II 

The  scene  is  the  same.  Madeleine  and  Vannaire  are 
present.  Both  have  aged  considerably,  though  Madeleine, 
who  is  only  thirty,  possesses  a  sad  yet  striking  beauty. 

MADELEINE  (seated) 

Oh,  it's  to-day!  Very  well.  I  had  forgotten. 
You  know,  these  visits  are  very  painful  to  me. 

VANNAIRE 

But,  Madeleine,  what  Leglay  asked  was  the  very 
least  of  what  he  had  a  right  to  expect.  Remember, 
he  is  not  separated  from  his  wife  and  child  by  even 
a  divorce  decree!  Since  the  child  was  born  seven 
years  ago  he  has  come  to  see  him  only  once  a  month. 

MADELEINE 

You  know  how  painful  it  is  to  know  he  is  in  this 
house,  the  house  of  my  father,  whom  he  has  caused 
to  suffer. 

VANNAIRE 

You  know  very  well  he  suffers,  too.  You  must 
admit  he  has  been  most  dignified  —  not  to  say 
stoical.  During  this  separation,  which  has  lasted 
nearly  eight  years,  he  might  unconsciously  have 
come  to  hate  you  and  gone  to  law:  you  know  the 
law  gives  him  certain  rights.  Remember,  he  was  not 
guilty  toward  you.  He  lives  in  silence,  away  from 
the  child  whom  he  has  a  right  to  take  from  you. 

MADELEINE    (quickly) 

Oh  — 


PROGRESS  117 


VANNAIRE 

He  might;  there's  no  doubt  about  that.  He  con- 
sents to  live  away  from  that  child  and  from  a  woman 
who  loves  him. 

MADELEINE 

Please,  Vannaire!  You  know  I  don't  want  to  hear 
such  things.  For  the  past  eight  years  my  father 
has  been  suffering  from  a  malady  of  which  Paul  is 
the  sole  cause. 

VANNAIRE 

That  was  not  Leglay's  fault;  it's  the  fault  of  the  age, 
of  new  scientific  discoveries.  Listen  to  me,  my 
dear  Madeleine,  I've  been  wanting  to  ask  you  this 
question  for  some  time.  Suppose  Leglay  had  said 
nothing,  in  spite  of  his  conviction  —  which  was 
known  to  you  —  could  you  have  been  absolutely 
happy?  Would  you  not  have  despised  him — in 
a  way? 

MADELEINE 

If  I  were  positive  that  he  knew  the  truth,  but  I 
am  not. 

VANNAIRE 

Madeleine,  you  must  admit  —  I  assure  you  that  at 
my  age,  and  I'm  well  on  in  years,  I  can't  confess 
without  a  little  bitterness  —  that  you  and  my  poor 
friend  Therat  are  the  only  ones  who  do  not  feel  that 
Leglay  is  right. 

MADELEINE 

I  refuse  to  believe  until  my  father  tells  me  I  must, 
until  he  himself  believes.  I'll  never  forget  the 
cause  of  this  illness  that's  killing  him.  You  wonder 


118  PROGRESS 


at  my  firmness,  but  think,  for  the  past  eight  years, 
I  have  watched  my  father  growing  older,  a  victim 
of  the  shock  he  received  that  day.  If  I  were  ever  to 
weaken  toward  my  husband,  I  should  have  only 
to  look  at  my  poor  dear  father.  That  gives  me 
renewed  energy.  Don't  you  see  how  he  has  aged 
and  suffered? 

VANNAIRE 

Oh,  yes,  yes.  He  is  one  of  the  victims  of  the  cruel 
and  necessary  progress  of  thought.  But  he  is  not 
the  only  one:  there  is  you  yourself,  the  child,  and 
Leglay.  Have  you  seen  Leglay  lately? 

MADELEINE 

Not  for  a  long  time.     I  never  go  out. 

VANNAIRE 

Neither  does  he  —  except  to  visit  his  patients  at  the 
hospital,  where  he  is  the  head  doctor.  He  shows 
noble  devotion. 

MADELEINE 

Like  my  father! 

VANNAIRE 

Like  your  father.  And  sometimes  he  goes  to  the 
Academy  of  Medicine.  He  works  and  works,  alone 
and  in  sadness.  He,  too,  has  aged  —  a  great  deal  — 

MADELEINE 

And  I,  too? 

VANNAIRE 

You  are  graver,  more  beautiful.    That  isn't "  aging" — 

MADELEINE  (with  a  vague  smile) 
Oh,  you  only  say  that — ! 


PROGRESS  119 


VANNAIRE 

He  is  much  older  than  you.  You  didn't  know  his 
hair  is  almost  white? 

[Madeleine,  surprised,  raises  her  eyes  questioningly 
to  Vannaire,  then,  without  replying,  drops  her  head 
heavily.  Enter  Mme.  Therat. 

MME.   THERAT 

How  are  you,  Vannaire? 
VANNAIRE  (going  to  Mme.  Therat) 
How  are  you  ?    And  how  is  Therat  ? 

MME.    THERAT    (sadly) 

Always  the  same:  he  says  nothing.  Ever  since  he 
began  sending  patients  to  other  doctors,  he's  scarcely 
spoken  a  word,  you  know. 

VANNAIRE 

They  say  he  suffers  more  since  he  stopped  working. 

MADELEINE 

He  has  too  much  time  to  brood.  Nothing  ever 
excites  him  any  longer.  There  is  nothing  to  take 
his  mind  off  the  past  —  nor  my  mind  off  it,  either. 
When  he  had  his  patients,  he  put  into  them  his 
doubts,  his  fears,  his  hopes.  Then  he  confided  in 
me,  and  I  feared  and  hoped  with  him.  (Then, 
pensively,  as  if  speaking  to  herself)  That  was  forget- 
fulness,  or  the  will  to  forget. 

MME.  THERAT  (to  Vannaire) 

The  child  is  the  only  one  he  speaks  to  now  —  and  you. 
It  seems  you  are  the  only  one  he  can  confide  in. 

VANNAIRE 

Because  I  suffer  as  he  does. 


120  PROGRESS 


MME.   THERAT 

He  seems  to  live  with  only  one  thought.  So  long  as 
he  had  patients,  and  busied  himself  with  them,  it 
kept  life  in  him,  or  at  least  some  appearance  of  life. 
But  since  he's  been  idle,  he  says  nothing,  except  to 
refer  to  his  ill-health,  that  began  — 

VANNAIRE 

Is  he  coming  down-stairs? 

MME.    THERAT 

I  think  so.  But  he  hardly  ever  comes  here,  and  then 
only  to  see  a  patient,  whom  he  sends  to  another 
doctor.  Another  has  just  been  announced. 

VANNAIRE 

Whom  does  he  send  them  to? 

MME.    THERAT 

I  don't  know;  he  never  says.  He  doesn't  tell  you, 
Madeleine,  does  he? 

MADELEINE 

Never. 

VANNAIRE 

Nor  me. 

{Enter  Therat.    He  looks  much  older  and  his  face  is 

thin  and  solemn. 

THERAT 

Oh,  it's  you,  Vannaire.  Why  didn't  you  come  up? 
(To  his  wife}  He  hasn't  come  yet? 

MME.    THERAT 

No. 

MADELEINE 

Father,  I  ought  to  warn  you:    M.  Vannaire  has 


PROGRESS  121 


reminded  us  that  he  is  coming  to-day — you  know: 
to  see  the  boy. 
THERAT  (impenetrably) 
Ah! 

MME.    THERAT 

Again  ?    So  soon  ?    But  it  hasn't  been  a  month  since 
his  last  visit? 

MADELEINE 

Yes  it  has,  mother. 

VANNAIRE 

Exactly  a  month,  Madame. 
[T her  at  sits  dowr\. 

MME.   THERAT 

I'll  see  that  the  boy  is  ready.     (To  Madeleine) 
Up-stairs,  as  usual? 

MADELEINE 

Of  course,  mother. 
[Mme.  Therat  goes  out. 

VANNAIRE 

Are  you  waiting  for  a  patient? 

THERAT 

Yes.     A  few  still  come  from  time  to  time. 

VANNAIRE 

And  you  don't  treat  them  yourself? 

THERAT 

I  don't  care  to  any  longer. 

VANNAIRE 

Why  not? 

THERAT 

I  am  too  old.    You  don't  write  books  any  longer, 
do  you? 


122  PROGRESS 


VANNAIRE 

Oh,  yes,  but  I  don't  talk  about  it. 

THERAT 

You  and  I  are  old  men  —  we're  played  out.  If  I 
were  to  treat  patients,  they  would  complain  in  a 
week's  time  because  they  were  not  completely 
cured,  and  go  elsewhere  —  to  young  doctors.  I 
prefer  to  send  them  away  at  once. 

VANNAIRE 

To  whom? 

THERAT 

That  depends:  some  to  one,  some  to  another  — 

VANNAIRE 

To  doctors  who  believe  in  your  methods? 

THERAT  (after  a  moment  of  hesitation  —  looking  at 
him)  Of  course.  You  don't  imagine  —  ?  What 
time  do  you  expect  him? 

VANNAIRE 

Whom? 

THERAT 

Him! 

VANNAIRE 

Oh,  Leglay?  Soon,  I  think.  He  generally  comes 
about  three. 

THERAT 

I  see. 
MADELEINE  (going  to  him) 

Poor  father!  I  do  make  you  suffer,  don't  I?  It 
doesn't  do  you  any  good  to  know  that  he  comes  here. 


PROGRESS  123 


VANNAIRE 

Nonsense.     It  makes  no  difference  to  you,  does  it, 
Therat?     Madeleine  is  exaggerating. 
{Therat  says  nothing,  but  puts  his  hand  mechanically 
to  his  heart.     All  three  are  silent  for  a  moment,  then 
the  bell  rings. 
MADELEINE  (suddenly) 
The  bell! 
[Therat  looks  closely  at  her. 

VANNAIRE 

Well? 

MADELEINE 

It's  he! 

VANNAIRE 

Possibly. 

\_She  goes  to  the   bay-window>    Vannaire  following. 

Therat  keeps  his  eyes  fastened  on  her. 
MADELEINE  (in  an  undertone  to  Vannaire,  as  she  listens) 

You  say  his  hair  is  white?     (Both  look  out  the  window) 

That's  not  he.    It's  the  patient  to  see  father.     (To 

Therat)    We'll  leave  you. 

[Madeleine  and  Vannaire  go  out.    Enter  a  servant 

a  moment  after,  introducing  the  patient,  a  woman. 
PATIENT 

Doctor! 

THERAT 

Madame! 

PATIENT 

I  should  like  you  to -examine  me.     My  throat  has 
been  bothering  me.     I  Ve  tried  a  few  simple  remedies : 


124  PROGRESS 


gargled,  inhaled,  and  so  on,  but  the  throat  is  only 
worse.  My  tonsils  — 

THERAT 

Let  me  see  —  (He  takes  a  pallet  and  examines  her 
throat)     Yes,  yes,  you  ought  to  have  come  sooner. 
PATIENT  (nervously) 

Is  it  very  serious,  Doctor? 

THERAT 

No,  it's  not  very  serious,  but  it  is  serious. 

PATIENT 

I  shan't  have  to  be  —  operated  on? 

THERAT  (after  a  pause) 

Operated  —  ?  (With  an  effort)  No  —  no  —  there's 
no  necessity.  Of  course,  you  didn  't  know  when  you 
came:  I  am  not  practising  any  longer? 

PATIENT 
Oh! 

THERAT 

No.  The  only  thing  I  take  is  an  exceptional  case 
now  and  then.  You  had  better  see  another  physician. 
(With  difficulty)  You'd  better  go  to  —  to  —  go 
to  Doctor  Leglay  —  Paul  Leglay,  Rue  Blanche. 
He  will  take  good  care  of  you;  he  is  a  very  able 
physician. 
PATIENT 

Doctor  Leglay,  Rue  Blanche.  You  don't  think 
I  '11  have  to  have  an  operation  ? 

THERAT 

No,  no,  I'm  sure  you  won't. 

PATIENT 

Thank  you,  Doctor. 


PROGRESS  125 


THERAT 

Just  one  word:    don't  say  it  was  I  who  sent  you. 
He  is  a  little  erratic  —  touchy,  and  he  might  be  — 
you  understand?     Pride  —  physicians'  pride! 
PATIENT 

Very  well,  Doctor,  and  thank  you.  You  Ve  given  me 
courage.  I  was  afraid  I  might  have  to  be  operated 
on.  I  was  told  you  might  want  to  — 
[Therat  rings.  He  smiles  a  bitter  smile.  The  servant 
enters,  and  escorts  the  patient  out  of  the  room.  Therat 
returns  slowly  to  his  desk,  throws  down  the  pallet  with 
a  petulant  gesture,  then  sits  down,  putting  his  hands 
over  his  eyes.  Enter  Mme.  Therat. 

MME.    THERAT 

Are  you  through? 

THERAT 

Oh,  it 's  you? 

MME.  THERAT 

Is  it  over? 

THERAT 

Yes. 

MME.  THERAT 

Do  you  feel  well?    You  aren't  tired? 

THERAT 

I  'm  very  well. 

MME.    THERAT 

Did  you  send  the  patient  away? 

THERAT 

Yes. 

MME.    THERAT 

To  whom? 


126  PROGRESS 


THERAT 

To  whom?    To  —  Doctor  Blanche. 
[He  rises.    Enter  Madeleine  and  Vannaire.     Made- 
leine is  agitated. 

THERAT 

Are  you  coming  up,  Vannaire?    We'll  have  a  chat. 

VANNAIRE 

Suppose  we  stay  here? 

MADELEINE 

You  know,  father,  he  is  upstairs,  with  the  boy. 

MME.    THERAT 

Has  he  come  ?    I  didn't  know.    Are  you  sure  ? 
MADELEINE  (feverishly) 
I'm  positive  I  saw  him! 
^T  her  at  turns  to  her. 

MME.   THERAT 

You  saw  him?    How? 

VANNAIRE 

We  met  him  just  now  on  the  stairs. 

MADELEINE 

I  hadn't  seen  him  for  a  long  time.    His  hair  is  snow- 
white. 

THERAT 

Then  he's  here? 

MADELEINE 

Yes. 

THERAT  (goes  to  her,  takes  her  head  between  his  hands, 
and  gazes  into  her  eyes) 
You  look  as  if  you  were  going  to  cry,  Madeleine. 


PROGRESS  127 


MADELEINE  (deeply  moved) 

No,  no,  father.     I  —  I  'm  not  crying  — 

[Her  words  are  checked  by  a  violent  sob. 

MME.   THERAT 

What  is  the  matter,  Madeleine?  What's  wrong? 
You're  not  crying  for  him,  are  you?  Not  for  him? 

THERAT 

Poor  child! 

MADELEINE 

No,  no,  father.  I  don't  —  know  —  why  I  'm  crying. 
The  boy  —  up  there  —  and  —  and  —  this  is  the 
first  time  I've  seen  him!  (She  rises  and  looks  at  her 
father)  No,  not  for  him,  not  for  him ! 

THERAT 

Poor  child! 

MADELEINE 

I  —  I  just  need  to  cry.  Please  go,  mother.  I'm 
going  up  to  my  room.  I'll  be  all  right. 

MME.    THERAT 

I'll  come  with  you. 

MADELEINE 

No,  mother.    Leave  me  to  myself.    Don 't  worry. 
[She  goes  out. 

THERAT  (falling  into  a  chair) 
My  poor  dear  child! 

[He  puts  his  hand  to  his  heart,  and  closes  his  eyes  for 
a  moment. 

MME.  THERAT  (going  quickly  to  him) 
Are  you  still  suffering? 


128  PROGRESS 


THERAT 

It's  nothing.  Dizziness.  Madeleine  is  the  one  who 
suffers. 

MME.   THERAT 

Yes,  and  you,  too.  But  you  both  suffer  for  the  same 
reason.  It  is  his  fault. 

THERAT  (severely) 
Nanine !    Now  — 

MME.    THERAT 

You're  not  going  to  defend  him,  are  you?  He 
took  from  us  everything  that  was  worth  having: 
your  reputation  and  our  girl's  happiness.  He  has 
ruined  OUT  life.  When  you  turn  pale  and  put 
your  hand  to  your  heart,  I  know  you're  thinking 
of  him!  It's  he  and  what  he  did  —  just  for  his 
own  reputation! 

THERAT 

Nanine,  you  must  not  say  such  things. 

MME.    THERAT 

What!    Do  you  think  he  was  right? 

THERAT 

No,  I  don't.  (Pensively}  No  —  no.  But  I  don't 
think  he  acted  from  selfish  motives.  We  must  at 
least  give  him  his  due.  I  believe  he  thought  he  was 
acting  in  the  interest  of  science  —  and  he  was. 

MME.    THERAT 

Science!  Yes,  ah,  science —  !  It's  never  satisfied, 
no  matter  how  much  one  sacrifices  to  it. 

THERAT 

Nanine ! 


PROGRESS  129 


MME.    THERAT 

Science  demands  too  much;  it  has  taken  away  my 
happiness  in  life.  I  used  to  believe  in  it,  when  I  was 
young,  even  when  it  was  taking  you  from  me.  I 
saw  it  taking  your  youth  from  you,  and  mine  from 
me.  I  was  thrilled  when  you  talked  about  it,  and 
showed  such  splendid  faith  in  it,  when  you  told  me 
of  the  great  happiness  it  would  bring  us  some  day. 
I  didn't  rebel  against  it  then.  I  was  willing  to  grow 
old  before  my  time,  and  see  you  giving  yourself 
up  to  it.  Science  seemed  to  make  you  happy.  And 
I  was  proud  of  you.  I  believed  you  would  be  re- 
warded with  glory  and  a  brilliant  reputation.  That 
was  your  only  recompense.  And  it  was  in  the  name 
of  science  that  that  glory  was  stolen  from  you.  It's 
always  that  way.  Science  demands  every  sacrifice, 
and  gives  nothing  in  return  —  except  perhaps  a  brief 
make-believe  glory  that  your  own  associates  snatch 
from  you  the  moment  they  are  able.  That's  the 
way  you  get  glory:  steal  it  from  some  one  else. 
It  seems  you  have  to  make  science  over  again,  unmake 
it,  and  then  make  it  over  once  more.  If  you  have  to 
do  that,  then  it  doesn't  exist! 

THERAT  (rising,  then  forcefully) 
Nanine,  don't  say  that! 

MME.    THERAT 

I  've  suffered  too  much  —  through  you  and  through 
Madeleine.  I've  seen  too  much  trickery.  I  know 
too  much  about  it  — 

THERAT  (with  sharp  authority) 
Stop  it!    You  insult  us! 


130  PROGRESS 


VANNAIRE 

My  dear  friend,  please  be  calm.  No  one  is  respon- 
sible — 

THERAT 

And  leave  us ! 
MME.  THERAT  (nervously) 

But  you  — 
THERAT  (quietly) 

Please  —  go. 

MME.   THERAT 

You  don't  blame  me?     I  didn't  mean  to  — 
THERAT  (with  a  bitter  smile) 

No,  no,  you  dear  old  wife.  Not  at  all.  Only,  I 
don 't  like  your  very  goodness,  your  love  for  Madeleine 
and  me  to  make  you  say  things  that  are  unjust  and 
untrue.  Now  I  want  to  chat  with  Vannaire  — 
quietly.  Won't  you  leave  us  ? 

MME.   THERAT 

Certainly.  (She  goes  to  the  door)  You're  quite 
sure  you  're  not  ill  ? 

THERAT 

No:  I  am  very  well. 
[She  goes  out. 

THERAT 

Vannaire,  I  am  simply  terrified. 

VANNAIRE 

Why? 

THERAT 

I  have  just  heard  the  only  voice  that  has  the  power 
to  make  me  hesitate  and  doubt:  the  voice  of  igno- 
rance, my  own  ignorance. 


PROGRESS  131 


VANNAIRE 

My  dear  fellow,  what  are  you  saying  ?  Others  believe 
in  you  and  admire  you.  You  don't  have  to  go  out- 
side this  house:  Madeleine,  I  — 

THERAT 

You? 

VANNAIRE 

Yes,  I. 

THERAT 

No,  Vannaire.  You  think  a  great  deal  of  me,  you 
know  how  devoted  and  disinterested  my  work  has 
been;  you  recognize  my  enthusiasm,  but  you  don't 
believe  in  me. 

VANNAIRE 

I  believe  in  you  as  I  believe  in  myself.  I  believe 
that  you  and  I  have  done  our  work  conscientiously 
and  done  it  well. 

THERAT 

And  that  that  work  is  now  over. 

VANNAIRE 

Our  function  was  to  — 

THERAT 

But  are  you  sure  Madeleine  still  believes  in  me? 
She  doesn  't  doubt  —  ? 

VANNAIRE 

I  am  positive. 

THERAT 

How? 

VANNAIRE 

She  told  me  —  an  hour  ago. 


132  PROGRESS 


THERAT 

Were  you  discussing  me? 

VANKAIRE 

Yes. 

THERAT 


VANNAIRE  (hesitating) 
You  — 

THERAT 

And  him! 

VANNAIRE 

Yes. 

THERAT 

What  started  you? 

VANNAIRE 

Why,  his  visits.  She  was  upset,  and  I  tried  to  soothe 
her. 

THERAT 

You  were  defending  him! 

VANNAIRE 

I  was  defending  only  his  intentions,  as  you  yourself 
were. 

THERAT 

And  what  did  she  say? 

VANNAIRE 

At  the  end  of  our  discussion  she  said,  "When  my 
father  says  he  is  right,  then  and  then  only  will  I 
believe." 

THERAT  (fearfully) 
I?    When  I  tell  her? 


PROGRESS  133 


VANNAIRE 

But  she  is  sure  you  won't,  because  you  are  so  sure 
yourself.  You  are  positive  he  is  mistaken  — 

THERAT  (after  a  pause) 

Vannaire,  you  noticed  Madeleine's  agitation  a  few 
moments  ago?  You  saw  her  cry.  She  loves  him, 
doesn't  she? 

VANNAIRE  (embarrassed)  ) 
Oh,  I  can't  say. 

THERAT 

Be  frank  with  me,  Vannaire.  You  must.  Made- 
leine's unhappiness  is  a  very  serious  matter.  She 
must  not  be  allowed  to  suffer  any  longer  on  my 
account.  I  ought  to  have  seen  things  sooner,  but 
I  was  blind.  It  was  just  like  a  foolish  old  scientist 
to  forget  love.  We  have  no  right  to  sacrifice  the 
lives  of  our  children  for  the  sake  of  a  few  months 
for  ourselves.  She  still  loves  him,  Vannaire,  still, 
or  once  again  — 

VANNAIRE 

Yes,  I  think  she  has  always  loved  him.  She  is  the 
sort  of  person  who  makes  great  efforts  to  stifle  the 
affections.  She  experiences  the  martyr's  bitter  joy 
by  suffering  for  her  faith.  You  are  her  faith. 

THERAT 

And  she  suffers. 

VANNAIRE 

Yes. 

THERAT 

Why  couldn't  I  have  seen  that?  Why  couldn't 
I  have  foreseen  it?  It  was  inevitable.  (A  pause) 


134  PROGRESS 


Vannaire,  bring  her  to  me.     I  shall  tell  her  myself 

that  Paul  is  right  — 
VANNAIRE  (astonished) 

You  '11  tell  her  that  ?    Why  ? 
THERAT  (in  a  whisper) 

Because  it  is  the  truth.     I  now  see  it. 
VANNAIRE  (nervously) 

The  — the  truth? 

THERAT 

You  have  known  it  for  a  long  time.     Go  and  bring 
her.     Please  —  while  I  have  the  courage. 
[Vannaire,  deeply  stirred,  goes  out.     Therat  sits  motion- 
less, staring  at  nothing.    Madeleine  enters  after  a  few 
moments. 

MADELEINE 

You  wanted  to  see  me,  father? 

THERAT 

Yes,  I  want  to  say  something  to  you.  Did  Vannaire 
hint  —  ? 

MADELEINE 

No. 

THERAT 

Come  here,  closer  to  me.    Sit  down  here.     (She  sits 
down  near  him)     I  find  it  very  hard  to  tell  you.     I 
can't  speak  very  loud. 
MADELEINE  (nervously) 

Father,  what's  the  matter?    Aren't  you  well? 

THERAT 

I  have  a  confession  to  make,  dear  —  my  little  girl, 
my  Madeleine!  What  I  have  to  say  is  painful,  very 
painful.  You  know  how  I  love  you,  and  you  know 


PROGRESS  135 


I  have  always  labored  to  make  you  happy.  You 
don't  doubt  that,  do  you?  If  you  have  suffered 
through  any  fault  of  mine,  it  was  only  because  I 
did  not  know,  I  did  not  understand  — 

MADELEINE 

Oh,  I  know,  father.    I  know  how  you  love  me! 

THERAT 

But  what  you  don't  and  could  not  know  is  all  you 
have  meant  to  me.  You  are  my  child,  my  own  flesh 
and  blood,  but  you  are  something  else  besides.  I 
have  enjoyed  glory  of  a  sort,  Madeleine,  but  I  never 
cared  for  it  except  for  your  sake.  You  remember 
my  triumphs,  and  the  flattering  things  that  were 
written  about  me,  how  I  was  made  a  leader  among  the 
scientists.  I  have  known  every  sort  of  adulation. 
But  never  did  any  of  it  give  me  half  the  pleasure, 
the  pride  and  joy,  as  when  I  saw  the  first  glimmerings 
of  admiration  light  up  your  little  wondering  eyes  — 
when  you  began  to  understand  things.  From  that 
time  on,  all  my  pride  was  centered  in  you;  I  worked 
to  gain  your  approval,  and  only  yours.  Madeleine, 
I  never  felt  so  proud  as  on  that  day  when  you  were 
little  more  than  a  child  and  understood  very  little 
of  what  you  were  saying,  and  you  came  to  me  after 
school  and  said:  "Papa,  they  tell  me  you're  a  great 
scientist." 

MADELEINE 

Father,  why  are  you  telling  me  that? 

THERAT 

That  you  may  know,  and  have  a  little  pity  — 

MADELEINE 

Pity?    I  admire  you  as  I  always  did. 


136  PROGRESS 


THERAT 

Understand  me,  Madeleine.  You  must  realize 
what  you  have  been  for  me.  You  must  be  the  judge, 
because  it  is  you  who  will  transmit  memories  of 
tenderness  and  memories  of  pride  to  your  children. 
I  have  always  thought  of  you  as  a  sort  of  pledge  to 
the  future.  You  were  the  visible,  the  marvelous 
promise  of  to-morrow,  the  to-morrow  of  happiness 
for  which  I  struggled,  to  which  all  men  ought  to  be 
able  to  look  forward,  and  be  grateful  at  the  same 
time  to  those  who  have  gone  before  them.  When 
you  placed  your  confidence  in  me,  Madeleine,  I 
read  the  whole  future  in  your  eyes,  and  as  your 
eyes  reflected  mine  and  you  seemed  to  think  the 
same  thoughts  and  have  the  same  faith,  I  hoped 
that  some  part  of  me  would  be  passed  on  and 
live,  and  a  little  of  all  my  efforts  be  remembered 
in  the  future. 

MADELEINE 

It  will  be,  father! 

THERAT 

When  I  am  with  you  I  feel  greater  pride  than  with 
any  one  else,  because  I  love  you  most.  Only  when 
people  doubted  my  beliefs  in  your  presence  was  I 
so  anxious  to  refute  them  and  prove  I  was  right. 
I  wanted  to  put  a  sacred  mission  in  your  hands. 
And  before  you  I  feel  more  humiliated  to  confess  a 
mistake.  I  couldn't  bear  to  see  you  even  a  little  less 
proud  than  I. 

MADELEINE 

But  I  am  proud  of  you,  father.  You  have  no  mis- 
take to  confess. 


PROGRESS  137 


THERAT  (his  head  bowed) 
Yes,  yes,  child  — 

MADELEINE  (quickly  rising  —  anxiously) 
What  mistake?  —  What  mistake? 

THERAT  (making  a  great  effort) 

During  the  last  few  months,  you  know,  I  have  not 
received  any  patients.  I  sent  them  to  another 
physician.  Madeleine,  I  —  I  have  sent  them  to  — 
to  your  husband! 

MADELEINE 

To  Paul?    Then—  ? 

THERAT 

Yes.     I  believe  —  I  believe  —  that  he  is  right. 

MADELEINE 

For  months! 

[She  draws  away  toward  the  door,  slowly. 

THERAT 

I  confess  it,  child,  because  I  want  you  to  be  happy, 
I  want  you  to  live.  But  —  but  —  you  have  no  idea 
what  this  confession  has  cost  me.  I  want  you  to 
feel  just  a  little  of  your  old  pride  in  me.  Be  a  little 
tender  —  toward  —  your  father.  See  —  I  —  I'm 

'  crying.     I  am  —  so  —  sad  — 

MADELEINE  (at  the  door) 

Yes,  yes,  father  —  !  But  —  (She  goes  out  quickly, 
as  if  she  were  walking  on  air)  Paul !  Paul ! 

THERAT  (rises  and  tries  to  take  a  step  toward  the  door, 
but  falls) 
Madeleine!     My  child! 

MADELEINE    (outside) 

Paul! 

CURTAIN 


138  PROGRESS 


ACT  III 

A  simply  furnished  drawing-room.  Therat  is  seated 
in  an  armchair.  He  looks  very  old.  Madeleine,  whose 
hair  is  beginning  to  turn  grey,  sits  at  a  small  table,  uniting. 
After  a  moment,  enter  Edmond  —  Madeleine 's  son. 

EDMOND 

Grandfather,  I've  come  to  say  good-bye. 

THERAT 

Where  are  you  going? 

EDMOND 

To  class. 

THERAT 

What  is  it  this  afternoon? 

EDMOND 

The  clinic. 

THERAT 

What  professor? 

EDMOND 

Ferruel. 

THERAT 

Oh,  yes.    He's  new,  isn't  he?    They  tell  me  he's 
just  published  a  book,  an  important  book. 

EDMOND 

I    don't    know.     But    he's    interesting.     And    the 
course  is  fascinating. 

MADELEINE  (smiling) 

You  find  them  all  fascinating. 


PROGRESS  139 


EDMOND 

Yes  —  I  only  wish  there  were  more  of  them. 

MADELEINE 

So  you  enjoy  them? 

EDMOND 

I'm  mad  about  them! 

MADELEINE 

Do  you  hear  that,  father?  You  must  have  been 
like  that  at  twenty,  weren't  you? 

THERAT 

Yes.  Oh,  dear,  yes.  (After  a  pause,  he  says  bitterly) 
Poor  boy! 

EDMOND 

Why,  grandfather?  Isn't  it  splendid  to  be  so 
enthusiastic?  A  doctor  who  isn't  excited  about  his 
subject  would  make  a  pretty  poor  shopkeeper. 

MADELEINE 

A  doctor?    But  you're  not  a  doctor  yet. 

EDMOND 

I  shall  be  in  two  years. 

MADELEINE 

Are  you  sure? 

EDMOND 

Absolutely.     (To  Theraf)     But  I've  never  seen  any 
one  so  enthusiastic  as  you! 
[He  sits  down  near  Therat. 

THERAT 

Yes,  I  was,  of  course,  I  used  to  be.  But  I  have 
suffered  a  great  deal  as  a  result.  (He  puts  his  hand 
to  his  heart)  But  I  am  not  any  longer. 


140  PROGRESS 


EDMOND 

Nonsense! 

THERAT 

No:  it  is  all  too  heart-breaking  —  too  deceptive. 
And  you  must  remember,  the  science  I  loved  is  now 
an  antiquated  science,  old  like  me.  No,  I'm  not 
enthusiastic  now,  and  I  no  longer  want  to  be. 

EDMOND 

Do  you  really  believe  that,  grandfather?  Then 
why  do  you  ask  me  questions  every  day  about  my 
courses,  and  what  I  am  taught  ?  Why  do  you  explain 
the  things  my  teachers  don't  explain  to  me  ?  You  're 
a  wonderful  teacher,  and  you  are  enthusiastic,  grand- 
father. You  inspire  me. 

THERAT  (raising  his  head  —  with  a  smile  which  is  full 
of  anguish) 
Then  I  am  still  good  for  something? 

•  MADELEINE 

Father!    The  idea. 

THERAT 

Well,  if  I  am,  it's  in  spite  of  myself.  I  don't  intend 
any  harm  —  and  it  is  harmful.  I  am  afraid  that 
there  will  come  a  day  when  you  will  not  forgive  me: 
the  day  you  learn.  —  Now  you  must  run  on  to  your 
class,  boy  —  it  is  time  — 

EDMOND 

Good-bye,  grandfather.  I  must  be  off.  I'll  come 
back  and  tell  you  what  we've  done.  Good-bye, 
mother. 

[He  kisses  Madeleine  and  goes  out. 
MADELEINE  (going  to  Theraf) 
Don't  you  need  anything,  father? 


PROGRESS  141 


THERAT 

No,  thank  you. 

MADELEINE 

You're  not  suffering? 

THERAT 

Not  very  much,  but  you  know  I  never  feel  very  well. 

MADELEINE 

Doesn't  Edmond  tire  you? 

THERAT 

Edmond?    Why? 

MADELEINE 

He 's  so  exuberant. 

THERAT 

No,  no,  he's  a  distraction.  Tell  me:  he  said  he'd 
be  a  doctor  in  two  years'  time.  He's  determined, 
is  he?  He  wants  to  practise?  Are  you  going  to 
let  him? 

MADELEINE 

Naturally;  you  know  very  well  — 

THERAT 

But  I  always  hoped  — 

MADELEINE 

Why?     He's  born  to    it.     He   loves  science,   and 
apparently  science  loves  him.     Think,  he  will  have 
finished  his  studies  at  twenty-two.     That's  really 
remarkable. 
THERAT 
Yes. 

MADELEINE 

And  then,  it's  natural;  he'll  be  a  scientist,  like  his 
grandfather  and  his  father.  He'll  prove  worthy  of 
them  and  their  profession. 


142  PROGRESS 


THERAT 

But  his  grandfather  is  nothing  at  all  now. 

MADELEINE 

Don't  say  such  cruel  things.  You  know  it's  not 
true.  You  know  every  one  respects  you,  you  know 
how  deeply  Edmond  admires  you,  and  that  his 
ambition  is  to  be  like  you. 

THERAT 

Yes,  yes  —  I  know.  But  —  I  am  afraid.  (He  takes 
her  hand  in  his)  You  know,  Madeleine,  I  don't 
blame  you,  but  one  day  —  the  day  I  cried,  —  and 
you  left  me  alone  — 

MADELEINE 

Father! 

THERAT 

I  am  not  blaming  you  —  it  was  inevitable.  I 
often  think  of  that  day,  and  I  am  afraid  the  time  will 
come  when  science  will  take  my  grandson  away  from 
me  as  it  did  my  daughter.  Some  day  Edmond  will 
learn  that  of  everything  I  told  him  not  a  shred  is 
true.  I  shall  be  alone  then. 

MADELEINE 

Father,  please  don't  talk  that  way.  Every  one  here 
loves  and  respects  you.  Everywhere  you  are  con- 
sidered a  great  man. 

THERAT 

I  hope  I'll  never  see  the  day.     But  I  don't  think 

I'll  last  - 

[He  puts  his  hand  to  his  heart  again.    Enter  Leglay. 

LEGLAY 

Has  Edmond  gone? 


PROGRESS  143 


MADELEINE 

Yes. 

LEGLAY  (very  respectfully  to  Therat) 

Master,  you  haven't  given  your  answer  about  the 
Academy  ? 

THERAT 

The  Academy  ? 

LEGLAY 

I  told  you:  they  asked  me  to  insist  on  your  coming. 
They  want  to  honor  you  in  public.  They  haven't 
seen  you  for  twelve  years,  you  know. 

THERAT 

They  shall  never  see  me. 

MADELEINE 

I  think  you're  wrong,  father  — 

THERAT 

No,  I  'm  right.     I  don't  want  to,  and  I  am  right. 
No,  what  would  be  the  use  ? 
\_Enter  Vannaire. 

VANNAIRE 

I  was  told  to  come  in,  and  I  came.  How  are  you, 
Madeleine?  Hello,  Paul?  How  are  you,  Therat? 

THERAT 

Well,  thanks. 

VANNAIRE 

Grand  council,  eh? 

MADELEINE 

We  're  trying  to  persuade  father  to  go  to  the  Academy 
of  Medicine,  where  they  want  to  see  him  again. 


144  PROGRESS 


THERAT 

Exhume  me!    No,  no.     (He  rises  painfully)     Van- 
naire,  give  me  your  arm,  will  you?     We'll  have  a 
chat  in  the  garden,  and  watch  the  dead  leaves. 
[Vannaire  offers  his  arm  to  Therat,  and  the  two  go  out. 
LEGLAY  (sadly) 

The  same  old  story! 

MADELEINE 

What  do  you  mean? 

LEGLAY 

Always  the  same  resentment. 

MADELEINE 

No,  no,  you  mustn't  say  that.    He's  not  resentful 
toward  you. 

LEGLAY 

But  his  silence,  his  obstinate  silence  — 

MADELEINE 

It's  not  only  when  you  are  present:  he  was  that  way 
even  before  you  came  back.  He's  often  that  way 
with  me,  and  he  was  with  mother.  He  didn't  blame 
her  for  anything.  Think  how  he  grieved  for  her! 
He  talks  only  with  Vannaire  and  Edmond  —  per- 
haps because  they  stand  for  the  past  and  the  future  in 
his  mind,  while  you  and  I  are  the  present.  And  he 
suffers,  you  know.  It's  our  fault. 
[She  sits  dovm.  A  pause. 

LEGLAY 

Madeleine  —  you,  too  — 

MADELEINE 

It's  the  fault  of  his  illness.     Every  time  he  puts  his 
hand  to   his  heart,  it  is  like  a  reproach.    That  is 


PROGRESS  145 


our  fault.  You  yourself  told  me  that  with  his  power 
of  resistance,  he  would  have  lived  a  long  time. 
It's  our  fault  — 

LEGLAY 

No,  it  is  not  our  fault;  it  was  the  fault  of  the  facts 
over  which  we  had  no  control.  Those  facts  crushed 
him.  They  made  us  suffer,  too.  We  weren't 
selfish:  we  sacrificed  ourselves.  Remember  that. 

MADELEINE 

Oh,  I  remember! 

LEGLAY 

Think  of  those  eight  terrible  years,  while  I  waited 
for  you.  We  were  young,  and  we  loved  each  other. 
You  never  stopped  loving  me,  did  you? 

MADELEINE 

Oh,  how  I  loved  you! 

LEGLAY 

I  spent  days  and  nights  in  torture,  when  memories 
and  desires  caused  me  fearful  struggles  with  my 
conscience.  There  were  times  when  I  was  on  the 
point  of  throwing  everything  to  the  winds  and 
giving  up  every  attempt  to  win  you  back.  And 
then  I  would  return  to  my  clinic  or  my  laboratory, 
ashamed.  And  I  found  in  the  anxious  look  of  a 
patient  the  power  to  carry  out  my  sacrifice. 

MADELEINE 

Yes,  we  have  suffered.  For  the  sake  of  our  pride, 
wasn't  it? 

LEGLAY 

Possibly,  Madeleine.  If  neither  you  nor  I  had  had 
it,  perhaps  everything  would  have  blown  over,  but 


146  PROGRESS 


it  would  have  been  shameful.  Pride,  yes,  but  it 
was  the  pride  that  refuses  to  be  happy  at  the  price 
of  base  compromise,  the  pride  of  suffering  for  some- 
thing great  —  for  faith. 

MADELEINE 

Faith? 

LEGLAY 

Yes.    The  same  faith  was  in  us  both. 

MADELEINE 

But  we  suffered  because  we  thought  differently. 

LEGLAY 

So  it  appeared.  You  believed  in  your  father,  didn't 
you?  Why? 

MADELEINE 

Because  I  loved  and  venerated  him. 

LEGLAY 

You  loved  him  because  you  saw  in  him  the  work  of 
a  lifetime,  devotion  to  mankind,  the  great  unknown 
masses;  an  unswerving  ideal  of  happiness  for  others; 
you  saw  in  him  a  great,  unselfish  conscience,  that 
thought  and  acted  for  the  good  of  others.  You 
admired  your  father,  who  refused  to  think  of  himself. 
It  was  my  ambition  to  be  like  him.  We  were  both 
urged  on  by  the  same  sentiment.  But  he  stood  be- 
tween and  separated  us,  caused  us  untold  suffering. 
If  it  had  not  been  for  him,  we  should  have  been 
just  selfish  lovers,  happy,  but  with  no  true  ideal  — 
fleshly  and  of  the  earth.  But  the  day  we  came 
together  again,  we  enjoyed  something  new,  some- 
thing grand,  uplifting:  the  grave  joy  of  deserved 
and  ennobled  happiness.  (Going  to  her  and  taking 
her  hand)  You  felt  that,  Madeleine,  I  know  you  did. 


PROGRESS  147 


MADELEINE  (troubled) 
I  don't  —  know  — 

LEGLAY 

I'm  sure  you  did.  Before  we  were  separated,  a  sort 
of  shame  made  you  turn  your  face  in  moments  of 
extreme  passion.  Now  you  feel  that  our  love  is 
not  merely  a  futile  pleasure;  you  feel  that  within  us 
there  is  something  more  than  ourselves.  You  look 
at  me  and  you  see  the  whole  world  —  everything 
that  I  struggle  for.  (They  embrace)  In  this  kiss  there 
is  a  touch  of  bitter  remembrance :  the  fears  and  hopes 
we  have  experienced  prolong  it,  carry  us  beyond 
and  above  ourselves.  In  you  it  is  the  whole  world 
I  love,  and  its  aspirations  toward  happiness,  paid 
for  by  suffering. 

MADELEINE  (putting    her    hands    about    his    head    and 
drawing  it  towards  her) 
I  see  that  in  your  eyes. 

[They  kiss  again  and  look  into  each  other's  eyes.  A 
pause.  Enter  Therat,  slowly,  leaning  on  Vannaire's 
arm. 

VANNAIRE 

Brrr!  It's  getting  cold!  It's  more  comfortable 
indoors. 

THERAT 

Cold  outside  —  and  sad! 
[He  sits  down. 

VANNAIRE 

No,  not  sad.  To-day  we  see  the  beautiful  melancholy 
splendor  of  autumn,  but  there's  nothing  sad  about  it. 


148  PROGRESS 


MADELEINE 

Isn't  it  beautiful?  The  leaves  are  getting  richer  and 
richer  every  hour. 

THERAT 

And  more  fragile  and  tremulous. 

MADELEINE 

They  are  never  more  beautiful. 

THERAT 

Yes  —  to  those  who  can  hope  to  see  them  bloom 
again!  In  a  month's  time  the  branches  will  be  only 
black  lines  against  a  livid  sky.  They  are  already 
alone  in  the  garden.  (To  Vannaire)  That  rose, 
that  last  rose  —  I  showed  you  the  petals,  so  withered 
and  faded!  And  the  dead  leaves  look  like  flesh  at 
an  autopsy.  I  remember  that  rose  the  day  before 
yesterday.  It  was  radiant  then;  its  color  seemed  to 
affect  the  atmosphere.  It  stood  so  straight  on  its 
stem  that  it  seemed  to  exercise  some  sort  of  power 
and  be  worthy  of  its  high-sounding  name:  "Glory 
of  Dijon!"  What  is  left?  A  little  decayed  matter, 
which  will  become  dust  to-morrow;  nothing  of  the 
marvelous  brilliancy  that  proudly  shot  its  color  into 
the  sunshine. 

VANNAIRE 

Now  you're  thinking  of  yourself.  But  something 
does  remain.  In  your  memory  there  remains  that 
brilliancy. 

THERAT 

My  memory  will  soon  be  dead. 

VANNAIRE 

It  will  exist  in  other  memories.     Other  roses  will 


PROGRESS  149 


bloom,  and  people  will  watch  and  examine  them 
more  carefully  because  of  the  memory  of  the  first. 
What  has  once  truly  lived  never  dies;  what  has 
been  appreciated  and  understood,  lives.  Every 
dead  rose  has,  before  it  withered,  impressed  its  color 
on  the  soul  of  man.  When,  to-day,  we  try  to  think 
of  a  delicate  tint  with  which  to  adorn  ourselves, 
all  the  flowers  in  the  world,  all  that  have  ever  existed, 
have  their  share  in  our  choice;  a  combination  and 
modification  of  their  tints  goes  to  make  the  desired 
shade,  which  gives  us  joy.  Every  flower  has  left 
its  streak  of  color;  we  do  not  always  see  them,  but 
we  feel  their  influence,  because  those  who  have  gone 
before  have  seen  them.  No,  Therat,  nothing  that 
has  once  truly  lived  ever  dies. 

[A  pause.  All  four  are  deep  in  thought.  All  at  once 
Therat,  with  a  slight  sigh,  puts  his  hand  to  his  heart. 
Vannaire,  Madeleine  and  Leglay  dart  toward  him. 

MADELEINE 

Father,  what's  the  matter?     (Therat  does  not  answer) 

Father! 
LEGLAY  (feeling  Therafs  pulse) 

Master! 

\A  long  pause.     Therafs  head  falls  heavily  against 

the  back  of  the  chair.     They  all  look  anxiously  at  him. 
THERAT  (raising  his  head) 

It's  nothing  —  not  this  time.     I  'm  —  I  'm  still  good    ^ 

for  —  (Looking  at  Leglay,  who  holds  his  wrist)     How    * 

long  do  you  think,  Leglay? 
LEGLAY  (embarrassed) 

Oh,  there  is  no  reason  why  — 


150  PROGRESS 


THERAT 

Come,  come,  you  know  as  well  as  I  do  — 

LEGLAY 

I  see  no  alarming  symptoms. 
THERAT  (speaking  with  difficulty) 

Look,  look  at  that  hand.     (He  shows  his  hand)     It  — 

it's  arter  —  arteri  —  help  me:  arteri  — 
LEGLAY 

Arteriosclerosis  ? 

THERAT 

Withered!  Yes.  Already  —  you  see  —  I  don't 
remem  —  I  can't  think  of  the  word.  Isn't  that  a 
symptom,  Leglay  ?  That's  a  phenomenon  of  a  — 
of  a  —  (With  a  gesture  of  profound  despair)  I  don't 
remember !  Of  —  of  —  aph  — ! 
LEGLAY 

Aphasia?  No,  no.  You're  just  a  little  tired  and 
dizzy. 

THERAT 

Leglay,  in  a  month  —  two  months,  at  the  outside,  I 
shall  be  dead. 

MADELEINE    (shocked) 

Father! 

VANNAIRE 

Now,  now,  Therat,  you  only  imagine  — 

LEGLAY 

You  are  mistaken. 

THERAT 

I  am  not  mistaken.  If  I  can't  think  of  the  words, 
I  know  the  facts.  I  know  —  and  I  see.  I  can  see 
my  heart  and  my  arteries.  I  know  they  are  used  up, 


PROGRESS  151 


worn  out,  practically  empty.  The  heart  may  be 
good  for  another  month,  but  no  more  — 

LEGLAY 

I   assure  you,   master,   you're   exaggerating.    The 
disease  is  not  so  far  advanced. 
THERAT  (with  authority) 

You  are  mistaken.  You  don't  know.  You  ought 
to  know.  I'll  —  let  me  —  explain:  the  hypo  — 
hypos  —  (irritably}  Oh,  I  can't  remember  the  word! 

LEGLAY 

Hyposy  stole? 

THERAT 

Yes.  (Therat  looks  intently  at  Leglay}  Yes,  but  — 
I  —  I  see,  you  know  what  I  am  going  to  —  to  tell 
you.  You  know  as  well  as  I  —  better,  because  you 
know  the  words.  I  know  things,  and  I  realize  that 
my  heart  is  atrophied.  I  —  know  what  will  cause 
my  death,  but  I  can't  explain  it.  It  would  be  better 
to  die  as  soon  as  possible.  I'm  not  a  scientist. 
Leglay,  tell  me  —  tell  me  —  the  word  hypo  — 

LEGLAY 

Hyposystole. 

THERAT 

Hy  —  po  —  sys  —  tole.  Hy  —  po  —  sys  —  sys  — 
No,  I  can't!  It's  all  over! 

VANNAIRE 

Come,  now,  my  dear  Therat,  this  isn't  anything. 
You're  just  tired  out  — 

MADELEINE 

Of  course,  father.  Don't  think  about  it  any  longer. 
Rest,  and  don't  wear  yourself  out. 


152  PROGRESS 


THERAT 

It's  all  over!     I  don't  remember!    The  words  leave 
me,  one  by  one.     I  don't  know  anything.     I  —  I'm 
dying  — 
[Enter  Edmond. 
MADELEINE  (surprised) 
Home  so  soon? 

EDMOND 

Yes.     I  didn't  wait  till  class  was  over. 

MADELEINE 

You're  excited?    What  happened? 

EDMOND 

Oh  —  Ferruel,  the  professor,  spoke  of  father  — 

LEGLAY 

Of  me? 

EDMOND 

Yes,  and  grandfather,  too. 
THERAT  (rising) 
Me? 

LEGLAY 

What  did  he  say? 

EDMOND 

He    spoke    of    your    work  —  your    methods  —  he 
criticised  them  — 
[Therat  listens  breathlessly. 

LEGLAY 

But  you  are  allowed  to  discuss  questions  in  class? 
You   said   something?    What   did  you   say?     You 
didn't  let  that  pass  —  ? 
EDMOND  (hesitating) 
I  said  nothing  at  all. 


PROGRESS  153 


LEGLAY 

What! 

EDMOND 

Because  I  had  nothing  to  say. 

[Therat,  with  renewed  effort,  stands  up  even  straighter 

than  before. 
LEGLAY  (agitated) 

Then  do  you  think  Ferruel  is  right,  and  I  wrong? 

Do  you  believe  that?    You  didn't  defend  me? 
EDMOND 

You  see  —  in  a  way,  he  is  right.     He  said  — 

LEGLAY 

What?  And  you  pretend  to  judge?  You  must  learn 
first,  or  keep  still! 

VANNAIRE 

Leglay,  don't  get  excited. 

MADELEINE 

Paul! 
THERAT  (leaning  on  the  arm  of  the  chair) 

Let  him  talk,  Leglay.     It's  his  turn  now! 
LEGLAY  (in  a  whisper) 

His  turn  —  ! 

THERAT 

Tell  us,  son  — 

EDMOND 

It's  this  way:  Ferruel  cited  examples  proving  that 
certain  curative  methods  are  not  always  effective. 
(To  Leglay)  You  never  denied  that,  did  you?  He 
praised  you  highly,  but  he  added  that  you  were 
wrong  in  applying  your  methods  too  rigorously. 


154  PROGRESS 


He  thinks  it's  dangerous  always  to  begin  with 
experimenting  — 

LEGLAY 

He  doesn't  know  what  he's  talking  about !  Of  course, 
Ferruel  thinks  I  'm  becoming  too  prominent. 

THERAT 

Leglay,  don't  talk  that  way.  I  used  to  think  the 
same  of  you,  and  I  was  wrong.  Go  on,  son,  what 
else  did  he  say? 

EDMOND 

He  says  that  there  are  positive  means  of  knowing 
certain  cases  where  the  therapeutic  method  is  useless. 
Then  he  talked  at  length  about  you,  grandfather, 
told  about  your  methods  of  diagnosis,  which  he 
thinks  splendid  — 

THERAT  (looking  proudly  at  Madeleine) 
You  see? 

EDMOND 

I  couldn't  say  anything,  because  he  was  so  respectful 
to  you  both,  and  he  admired  you. 

LEGLAY 

Do  you  think  so? 

EDMOND 

Yes,  he  said  you'd  both  done  splendid  service  in  the 
cause  of  science,  only  that  you  had  both  gone  too  far 
hi  the  application  of  your  ideas  and  the  valuable 
discoveries  you  had  made.  He  says  you  complement 
each  other,  and  that  the  new  science  will  take  some- 
thing from  each  of  you  as  a  starting  point  in  the 
search  for  a  new  method,  and  definite  conclusions  — 


PROGRESS  155 


LEGLAY 

Definite!  Ferruel  going  to  lay  down  definite  con- 
clusions !  You  youngsters  going  to  arrive  at  definite 
conclusions! 

YANNAIRE 

Leglay,  don't  lose  your  temper.  Your  son  is  just  as 
you  were  at  twenty.  His  convictions  are  just  as 
strong  as  yours  were.  Let  him  keep  them.  Perhaps 
it's  absurd,  or  unjust,  but  you  know  it  is  necessary. 
THERAT  (slowly,  quietly,  with  an  effort,  but  with  passion) 
Yes,  yes,  it  is  necessary,  it  is  necessary,  and  just, 
Vannaire.  You  must  let  him  believe,  because  he  is 
going  to  search.  Allow  him  to  believe  he  will  find 
the  ultimate,  the  definite  conclusions,  for  without 
that  faith  he  would  not  seek  them.  Perhaps,  per- 
haps, Leglay,  he  will  crush  us,  but  it  makes  no  differ- 
ence. Leglay,  come,  give  me  your  hand.  I  —  I 
begin  to  understand;  I  can  see  things  clearly  now. 
You  were  right,  Leglay,  not  to  give  in  to  my  selfish 
pride;  and  Edmond  is  right  in  looking  fairly  and 
squarely  at  your  work  and  mine.  Ferruel  has  a  clear 
vision  —  and  —  it  —  it's  always  that  way.  One 
after  another,  we  work  at  the  same  task;  even  when 
we  seem  to  contradict  each  other,  and  disagree  and 
dispute,  even  when  we  are  mistaken,  we  are  leading 
men  toward  the  same  goal.  Each  of  us  marks  a 
stage  in  progress.  The  future  is  never  mistaken. 
I  did  what  it  was  necessary  for  me  to  do.  You  too, 
Leglay.  Madeleine's  instinct  was  right  when  it 
drove  her  toward  you.  It  was  right  that  she  should 
disagree;  without  that  struggle,  our  labor  would  have 
proved  fruitless.  (To  Edmond)  You,  son,  work 


156  PROGRESS 


on,  and  don't  be  afraid  to  attack  what  we  have  estab- 
lished. Go  on,  your  faith  will  always  help  you; 
go  — 

[He  falls  into  his  chair,  exhausted,  his  eyes  closed. 
Every  one  goes  toward  him. 

EDMOND  (deeply  stirred) 
Go!    Father,  I  don't — 

THERAT  (opening  his  eyes  again) 

Yes,  yes,  you  will  go  on  if  you  think  it  necessary 
and  worth  while.  Promise  me,  promise  me.  You 
know  I  haven't  much  longer  to  live.  My  mind  is 
clear  now.  I  can  see  you  going  on,  without  turning 
back,  along  the  road  we  once  trod.  You  are  right. 
Go  on  —  ahead  — 

CURTAIN 


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